Fiction Archives - Life Is Story: Recent Episodes
Josh Olds
Katija feels her soul is deteriorating from the inside out. Omen rot is creeping through her body one inch at a time, starting from her ruined tattoo. Now that she has friends and family, she [...]
The post The Fire Within Them – Matthew Ward appeared first on Life Is Story.
Ivy Elliott lives in Florida with her mother, who is battling cancer. To fulfill a family dream, Ivy travels to Alaska to purchase a Jack London manuscript. She met Nolan Long by chance some time [...]
The post Hidden in the Night – Elizabeth Goddard appeared first on Life Is Story.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Broker of Lies was easily one of my favorite books last year, as evidenced by my glowing review. I cannot say the same [...]
The post Fatal Domain – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
What is it about Jaime Jo Wright’s books that are so entrancing? Is it the characters? The paranormal? The danger and the crime? All of the above, I tell you. Night Falls on Predicament Avenue [...]
The post Night Falls on Predicament Avenue – Jaime Jo Wright appeared first on Life Is Story.
The one place I have always wanted to go is the National WWII Museum in New Orleans…and promptly spend a week inside its walls. My father instilled in me a love of history from a [...]
The post The British Booksellers – Kristy Cambron appeared first on Life Is Story.
I have followed Travis Thrasher’s career for as long as I’ve been reviewing books and was sent an advance copy of Thrasher’s then-upcoming novel from FaithWords called Ghostwriter. I was hooked. Thrasher’s Solitary Tales series [...]
The post Midnight – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
This powerful novel explores themes related to celebrity culture in the church, the reality of abuse, and issues related to power and privilege. The suspenseful story follows a young woman who has started working as [...]
The post The Surface of Water: A Novel – Cynthia Beach appeared first on Life Is Story.
A Feather So Black by Lyra Selene introduces readers to a new world among an overabundance of “faerie” fantasies. Which, maybe this segment of the genre isn’t my fancy, so perhaps I am not the [...]
The post A Feather So Black – Lyra Selene appeared first on Life Is Story.
“I will never fall again.” Landry Hutton and Callum Shaw both promised themselves that. Their hearts have been trampled by bad relationships, and they won’t let it happen again. But they never could have anticipated [...]
The post Never Fall Again – Lynn H. Blackburn appeared first on Life Is Story.
“‘What you have, Oaken, is a vision problem. You see things through the lens of your own perspective, your own goals and hopes and fears. But when you open your eyes to God’s view, you [...]
The post One Last Shot – Susan May Warren appeared first on Life Is Story.
I stumbled on Audrey Blake quite by chance; Blake’s first novel came up as a suggested read on Amazon. Yes, I know “Audrey Blake” is technically two authors, but it’s easier to write the review [...]
The post The Woman with No Name – Audrey Blake appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Story of Kullervo is the second of three non-Middle-Earth JRR Tolkien tales to receive a literary overview from noted Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger. Flieger had written several books about Tolkien and Tolkien’s legendarium, including [...]
The post The Story of Kullervo – JRR Tolkien (ed. Verlyn Flieger) appeared first on Life Is Story.
Before Tolkien was the Master of Middle-Earth, he was a humble academic specializing in medieval English literature and philology. The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun comes from this non-Middle-Earth academic side of Tolkien merging with [...]
The post The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun – JRR Tolkien (ed. Verlyn Flieger) appeared first on Life Is Story.
Based off The Book of Doors, Gareth Brown will be a writer to watch. The novel opens up readers to a world of Gareth’s imagination, one page at a time. When a customer passes away [...]
The post The Book of Doors – Gareth Brown appeared first on Life Is Story.
Elizabeth Camden. When I see her name, I know I’m going to read the book. Topic doesn’t matter. Time period, I couldn’t care less. Elizabeth Camden has my attention from the first word, and she [...]
The post While the City Sleeps – Elizabeth Camden appeared first on Life Is Story.
I’d been looking forward to One Final Target by Janice Cantore since I first heard of its existence. The novel has the perfect amount of mystery and thrill, flavored with a dash of romance. When [...]
The post One Final Target – Janice Cantore appeared first on Life Is Story.
I can always count on Patricia Bradley to provide romantic suspense novels that will leave me guessing. Books that will have me looking around every corner, questioning the motives of every character who enters a [...]
The post Fatal Witness – Patricia Bradley appeared first on Life Is Story.
You know the viral meme from the Titanic film? Of an elderly Rose, saying “It’s been 84 years?” That’s how I felt waiting on The Trials of Empire by Richard Swan. I cannot say this [...]
The post The Trials of Empire – Richard Swan appeared first on Life Is Story.
One wrong move. One wrong decision. One misjudgment. That is all it can take to shape a life, for good or for bad. My favorite Dani Pettrey quality is how she takes her time. I [...]
The post One Wrong Move – Dani Pettrey appeared first on Life Is Story.
When someone tells me they want to start reading historical fiction, I always direct them to two authors: Kate Quinn and Kristin Hannah. For historical fiction, Kristin Hannah is easily one of the most talented [...]
The post The Women – Kristin Hannah appeared first on Life Is Story.
Every time I read a DiAnn Mills book, she reminds me why I enjoy her work. For me, she stands alone in the romantic suspense genre for her storytelling. Facing the Enemy by DiAnn Mills [...]
The post Facing the Enemy – DiAnn Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
Wrong Place Wrong Time enraptured me. It sucked me in from the first page and never let go. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one, as it was a Goodreads nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller [...]
The post Just Another Missing Person – Gillian McAllister appeared first on Life Is Story.
It has been way too long since I’ve read a Lynette Eason book! She is easily one of my favorite authors of the romantic suspense genre. Her books never fail to entertain, and Countdown is [...]
The post Countdown – Lynette Eason appeared first on Life Is Story.
Is it too cliché to call a book about baseball a home run? Is it too pretentious to call a book featuring 1950s Americana a Great American Novel? Even if they are, can I do [...]
The post The All American – Susie Finkbeiner appeared first on Life Is Story.
I have loved most of Robert Whitlow’s novels, and Double Indemnity is no exception. Liz Acosta comes to a small town in Georgia to work at a law firm. At first, Liz thinks the firm [...]
The post Double Indemnity – Robert Whitlow appeared first on Life Is Story.
When I saw Labyrinth’s Heart by M.A. Carrick was FINALLY available on NetGalley, I squealed like an excited puppy with a new toy. I read The Liar’s Knot in 2021. Since the day I finished [...]
The post Labyrinth’s Heart – M.A. Carrick appeared first on Life Is Story.
Patricia Bradley introduces her new “Pearl River” series with bang with Counter Attack. A serial killer strikes; Alexis and Nathan must team up to stop him before more lives are lost. The unsub leaves clues [...]
The post Counter Attack – Patricia Bradley appeared first on Life Is Story.
I’ve been a Lord of the Rings fan for just over twenty years now, and if you’re realizing that coincides with the Peter Jackson movie trilogy, you’d be absolutely right. A love of the books [...]
The post The Battle of Maldon: Together with the Homecoming of Beorhtnoth appeared first on Life Is Story.
How have I not read a Steven James novel until now?! It makes no sense to me whatsoever, because Broker of Lies by Steven James was everything I wanted and more. “Stop the Terrorists” is [...]
The post Broker of Lies – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
I have been eagerly waiting for Blind Trust by Natalie Walters. Lyla and Nicolás are complex characters, and while the previous books in “The SNAP Agency” trilogy hint at who they are, Blind Trust opens [...]
The post Blind Trust – Natalie Walters appeared first on Life Is Story.
My biggest complaint about Code Name Edelweiss by Stephanie Landsem is that it had to end. I fell in love with Landsem’s characters, and I did not want to part with them. Code Name Edelweiss [...]
The post Code Name Edelweiss – Stephanie Landsem appeared first on Life Is Story.
Richard Swan does it again. The Tyranny of Faith is in one word, mystifying. Each page introduces a new trial for Helena and company. New questions to answer. New moral dilemmas that often lack clear [...]
The post The Tyranny of Faith – Richard Swan appeared first on Life Is Story.
I believe I have mentioned this in a previous review, but I will say it again: As an adult, fantasy is a hard genre for me. My imagination may be vivid and overreactive, but I [...]
The post The Stardust Thief – Chelsea Abdullah appeared first on Life Is Story.
I admit, it took me far too long to read The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan. Fantasy is not a genre I can read often. Do I enjoy it? Absolutely, but I must pace [...]
The post The Justice of Kings – Richard Swan appeared first on Life Is Story.
You want high stakes? How about the president coming to your city for an event, and you’re responsible for his protection? Oh, and by the way, people have threatened him…and you. What was never simple [...]
The post Under Fire – Lynn H. Blackburn appeared first on Life Is Story.
Cold Light of Day by Elizabeth Goddard joins the ranks of romantic suspense novels set in the frigid north of Alaska. At this point, I couldn’t tell you how many Alaska books I have read, [...]
The post Cold Light of Day – Elizabeth Goddard appeared first on Life Is Story.
James Patterson’s collaborations with Emily Raymond have wandered somewhere in between mediocre (Injustice) to absolutely awful (Little Black Dress, Humans Bow Down, and pretty much the rest of their collabs). The Girl in the Castle [...]
The post The Girl in the Castle – James Patterson and Emily Raymond appeared first on Life Is Story.
James Patterson has written a lot of crap in his career. Blowback is not one of those books. The Trump presidency and the January 6th insurrection has left the country a lot to consider when [...]
The post Blowback – James Patterson and Brendan DuBois appeared first on Life Is Story.
Gwendy’s Button Box was a bit of an outlier for Stephen King in that he co-wrote it—not something he typically does—but it was otherwise vintage King. Young child? Check. Mysterious stranger? Check. A parable about [...]
The post Gwendy’s Final Task (The Button Box #3) – Stephen King and Richard Chizmar appeared first on Life Is Story.
FINALLY. I have been waiting for this book. Thank you, Lynette Eason, for delivering another exciting addition to the genre of romantic suspense. And let me tell you, this one is a zinger! Grace Billingsley [...]
The post Critical Threat – Lynette Eason appeared first on Life Is Story.
Alex Cross returns! In what, by now, is an expected annual adventure, Cross is about to hang it all up and resign from the Washington DC Police Force when John Sampson lures him back for [...]
The post Four Blind Mice (Alex Cross #8) – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Violets are Blue puts aside some of the relational melodrama for a second and instead puts all the focus on a weird, macabre set of killers who seem more animal than human. It’s over-the-top, but [...]
The post Violets are Blue (Alex Cross #7) – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
The success of the Alex Cross novels allowed James Patterson to experiment. His previous non-Cross novel, When the Wind Blows, was a sci-fi, the non-Cross novel that followed this one—The Jester—was historical fiction. This one [...]
The post Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s Alex Cross vs. The Mastermind. Roses are Red is Alex Cross’s sixth adventure and he’s up against the cleverest killer he’s faced yet. There’s also a lot of personal fallout from the events of [...]
The post Roses are Red (Alex Cross #6) – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
In a major departure from James Patterson’s previous work, When the Wind Blows is a sci-fi thriller that thrives on the fantastical. The story is about Frannie O’Neill, a young veterinarian, trying to grieve the [...]
The post When the Wind Blows – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Hide and Seek was James Patterson’s first non-Alex Cross novel after finding fame with Among Came a Spider in 1994. (Just look at how prominent his name is on this first edition cover!) After two [...]
The post Hide and Seek – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Even though the first two Alex Cross books were the ones turned into movies starring Morgan Freeman, it’s the third Alex Cross novel—Jack and Jill—that’s most deserving. Two killers (you can surmise what they call [...]
The post Jack and Jill (Alex Cross #3) – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Two years after Along Came a Spider put James Patterson on the map, he returned to the world of Alex Cross for a thriller featuring double the killers—Casanova and The Gentleman Caller. Killings are happening [...]
The post Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2) – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is the book that would make James Patterson famous. Along Came a Spider was Patterson’s seventh novel and was published seventeen years after his debut in 1976’s The Thomas Berryman Number. If I was [...]
The post Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross #1) – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
From 1981-1993, James Patterson published only two novels. For those familiar only with his current prodigious output, that seems impossible to believe. What did Patterson do during those eleven years? He found his voice as [...]
The post The Midnight Club – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Black Market continues James Patterson’s movement into conspiracy thrillers, giving readers the story of a secret militia group out to destroy the American economy and Federal Agent/Wall Street Lawyer duo that has to take them [...]
The post Black Market / Black Friday – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Virgin has the distinction of being James Patterson’s first book to be made into a movie. Granted, it was a TV movie with a budget to match, but it shows a development in Patterson’s pre-Alex [...]
The post Virgin / Cradle and All – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
After two fairly small-scale novels in The Thomas Berryman Number and Season of the Machete, James Patterson crafts a novel about a global conspiracy involving Jewish people which…well, makes the plot not exactly age gracefully, [...]
The post The Jericho Commandment / See How They Run – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Just over a decade ago, I was getting my start as a book critic and came across this little Christian spec-fic publisher that was just getting started called Marcher Lord Press. One of their early [...]
The post Drawn in Ash (A Legacy of Ink #1) – John Otte appeared first on Life Is Story.
James Patterson followed up his Edgar Award-winning debut novel, The Thomas Berryman Murder, with a second novel about a sadistic husband-and-wife killing team who will stop at nothing to take down their target. The Season [...]
The post The Season of the Machete – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
It is shocking how un-James Patterson-esque The Thomas Berryman Number is. James Patterson’s debut novel is almost anti-Patterson—long, lingering descriptions; a complex plot with crisscrossing flashbacks, a literary flair—it’s nothing what you’d expect. And this [...]
The post The Thomas Berryman Number – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
“I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” We all know that line from John Newton’s “Amazing Grace.” A former slaver turned Christian and abolitionist. Newton once said, “‘It [...]
The post All the Lost Places – Amanda Dykes appeared first on Life Is Story.
Jaime Jo Wright just continues to get better. The Premonition at Withers Farm is the latest on Wright’s climb up the echelon of Christian fiction, showcasing her now-characteristic dual timelines, eerie atmosphere, and well-written characters. [...]
The post The Premonition at Withers Farm – Jaime Jo Wright appeared first on Life Is Story.
Pretty Little Pieces is another splendid romance by Carmen Schober. Relatable characters, an entertaining plot, and strong messages of faith and second chances make for a novel that readers will not want to put down. [...]
The post Pretty Little Pieces – Carmen Schober appeared first on Life Is Story.
Susan May Warren is my favorite author of the romantic suspense genre. Hands down. I can always depend on her books to capture me. Wrap me in their plots and characters and not loosen their [...]
The post Sundown – Susan May Warren appeared first on Life Is Story.
I have enjoyed Amy Lynn Green’s two previous novels, and this third one is excellent as well. Although each of her books so far focuses on World War II, they all cover unique and different [...]
The post The Blackout Book Club – Amy Lynn Green appeared first on Life Is Story.
Let me preface this by saying I rarely review audiobooks because they often fail to leave a mark. They are unmemorable. I finish one, and I already have the next one waiting in the wings. [...]
The post Horse – Geraldine Brooks appeared first on Life Is Story.
How do you review a novel with such a bittersweet ending? A novel that leaves your heart feeling both warm and broken? Where the Blue Sky Begins was my first Katie Powner novel, and she [...]
The post Where the Blue Sky Begins – Katie Powner appeared first on Life Is Story.
Before I read Body of Evidence by Irene Hannon, it had been over a year since I’d picked up a novel by this particular author. I did not enjoy Labyrinth of Lies as much as [...]
The post Body of Evidence – Irene Hannon appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Premonition at Withers Farm by Jaime Jo Wright was book 112 of 2022 for me. And throughout those 112 books, I have tried to read different genres. Nonfiction, fantasy, romantic suspense, and general fiction. [...]
The post The Premonition at Withers Farm – Jaime Jo Wright appeared first on Life Is Story.
I waited a while before providing feedback on Concrete Evidence by DiAnn Mills. Not because I disliked the book but rather because I wanted to contemplate my words. I have enjoyed every DiAnn Mills book [...]
The post Concrete Evidence – DiAnn Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
Historical fiction rises and falls with the author’s ability to convey the historical settings in a way just unfamiliar enough to leave the reading hanging on every work, but also just familiar enough that they [...]
The post The Barrister and the Letter of Marque – Todd M. Johnson appeared first on Life Is Story.
For a long time, Christian military/prophetic fiction has really only had one voice: Joel Rosenberg. Others have tried it. Mel Odom wrote a military-themed spinoff trilogy in the world of Left Behind to tepid success. [...]
The post Operation Joktan – Amir Tsarfati and Steve Yohn appeared first on Life Is Story.
Fallout is my third Carrie Stuart Parks novel. Let me start this by saying that everyone has different tastes in books. With this third book, I think it is safe to say Carrie Stuart Parks’ [...]
The post Fallout – Carrie Stuart Parks appeared first on Life Is Story.
James Patterson has published over three hundred books and this is easily in the top five. Joining with J.D. Barker, Patterson weaves a paranormal thriller that keeps the pages turning and the light on. Death [...]
The post Death of the Black Widow – James Patterson and JD Barker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The latest Ted Dekker series is here! And it’s not a serial killer novel or an epic fantasy. This time, Ted has paired with his daughter, Kara Dekker, and illustrator Shelby Kirby to create a [...]
The post Barton the Dream Jumper – Kara and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The latest Ted Dekker series is here! And it’s not a serial killer novel or an epic fantasy. This time, Ted has paired with his daughter, Kara Dekker, and illustrator Shelby Kirby to create a [...]
The post Monty and the Tree of Light – Kara and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The latest Ted Dekker series is here! And it’s not a serial killer novel or an epic fantasy. This time, Ted has paired with his daughter, Kara Dekker, and illustrator Shelby Kirby to create a [...]
The post Lulu the Lost Rubber Ducky – Kara and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Originally, I was going to take a break from reading romantic suspense novels. I tried…for two weeks. Patricia Bradley drew me back into the genre with Deception, the final novel of her “Natchez Trace Park [...]
The post Deception – Patricia Bradley appeared first on Life Is Story.
Once again, Lynette Eason has blown me out of the water. She took my heart through a roller coaster of emotions with Crossfire. Rapid paced with enough mystery to keep my mind spinning, this ride [...]
The post Crossfire – Lynette Eason appeared first on Life Is Story.
While I have only read one other Janice Cantore book, I enjoyed it because of its accuracy. Code of Courage is no exception. The novel is complicated without being confusing. It keeps readers connected to its [...]
The post Code of Courage – Janice Cantore appeared first on Life Is Story.
Welcome back, Elizabeth Goddard! I have missed you and your work. From the first Goddard book I read, she set my expectations high…and she surpassed them tenfold with Critical Alliance. Thank you for bringing me [...]
The post Critical Alliance – Elizabeth Goddard appeared first on Life Is Story.
“CGIS.” One acronym, and Dani Pettrey drew me into The Deadly Shallows. I had never read any of her work; to be honest, I had not heard her name. I have read so many books [...]
The post The Deadly Shallows – Dani Pettrey appeared first on Life Is Story.
When I saw who endorsed Among the Innocent by Mary Alford, I instantly agreed to read it. I usually avoid anything to do with Amish fiction, but based off the synopsis, it seemed more of [...]
The post Among the Innocent – Mary Alford appeared first on Life Is Story.
Emily Raymond is a longtime James Patterson collaborator, particularly on books meant for middle or high schoolers. The Runaway’s Diary is no different, except for it being a graphic novel. Conceptually, I loved this book. [...]
The post The Runaway’s Diary – James Patterson, Emily Raymond, and Valeria Wicker appeared first on Life Is Story.
“‘And hello, maybe you’re exactly where you are supposed to be….Maybe God used your issues to give you exactly what you wanted.'” To think, I had never read Susan May Warren prior to a couple [...]
The post Sunburst – Susan May Warren appeared first on Life Is Story.
Hi, Mr. Hannibal? Yes, I would like to lodge a complaint. No, nothing serious. I was just very disappointed in Elysium Tide’s ending. What did I not like? Well, that is easy to explain. You [...]
The post Elysium Tide – James R. Hannibal appeared first on Life Is Story.
I don’t think I’ve ever had to drag myself to the end of a David Baldacci book. I have read every single Baldacci novel. Not all of them are good, but all of them have [...]
The post Dream Town (Aloysius Arthur #3) – David Baldacci appeared first on Life Is Story.
Stephen King’s latest short story is a Scribd original, making it—at least for now—exclusive to that platform. King has always played around with different publishing avenues, particularly for his short stories, and it’s interesting to [...]
The post Finn – Stephen King appeared first on Life Is Story.
I first noticed Count the Nights by Stars because of the beautiful cover, and even though I don’t often read Christian fiction, the premise appealed to me as well. I wasn’t sure what to expect [...]
The post Count the Nights by Stars – Michelle Shocklee appeared first on Life Is Story.
When you read a lot of romantic suspense like I do, many of the stories blur together. You forget details because plots are so similar, and characters have the same types of backgrounds. The Catch [...]
The post The Catch – Lisa Harris appeared first on Life Is Story.
Natalie Walters does it again with Fatal Code, the second novel of her “SNAP Agency” series. I always love her books, because they have a unique sense of humor that I’ve rarely found in other [...]
The post Fatal Code – Natalie Walters appeared first on Life Is Story.
I was about thirty pages into Skin the very first time I read it—the day it released—when I began to have this sense of déjà vu. We’ve been here before, haven’t we? A group of [...]
The post Skin – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
It was a collaboration between the established trailblazer nearing the end of his career and the young, idealistic upstart whose recent work followed in his footsteps. Theoretically, it was a no-brainer: put the top two [...]
The post House – Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti appeared first on Life Is Story.
This book released a few years ago, but I never got around to reading it, partly because I knew it dealt with heavy topics. I finally read it this past week, and loved it so [...]
The post Forward Me Back to You – Mitali Perkins appeared first on Life Is Story.
I will admit, I sat on Malicious Intent by Lynn H. Blackburn for an extended period of time before I finally opened it. I had too many romantic suspense authors already in my stack; I didn’t need more. [...]
The post Malicious Intent – Lynn H. Blackburn appeared first on Life Is Story.
Say…doesn’t this one seem familiar? And the answer is yes. After the success of the Circle Trilogy, Thomas Nelson immediately got to work reprinting Ted Dekker’s early novels. Most of these books just got a [...]
The post Blink of an Eye – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Robert Whitlow has been and always will be one of my favorite authors. While his books are rarely suspenseful, his plotlines are exceptional, and his characters are fantastically thought-out and well-written. That being said, however, [...]
The post Relative Jusice – Robert Whitlow appeared first on Life Is Story.
Following the release of the Circle Trilogy Visual Edition, Ted Dekker and Thomas Nelson continued the graphic novel trend by releasing a graphic novel version of the first four books in the six-book Lost Books [...]
The post The Lost Books Visual Edition – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Jedidiah Johnson is returning to action, training with the elite warriors known as the Shepherds. He thinks he knows what he’s getting himself into, but finds himself placed among the raw recruits. As he struggles [...]
The post Dark Angel – Andrews and Wilson appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is a tremendous story. It is one of those books that is difficult to know where to start to write an adequate review. I loved Shiloh. It’s a satisfying continuation in this captivating series [...]
The post Shiloh – Lori Benton appeared first on Life Is Story.
Action packed and full of excitement, Colleen Coble’s A Stranger’s Game has lots of mystery, suspense, and action. But…it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Did I like it? Yes! Yes, I did. And I highly recommend [...]
The post A Stranger’s Game – Colleen Coble appeared first on Life Is Story.
The mystery in Trace of Doubt is quite an intriguing one. I found it refreshingly different from most romantic suspense novels I’ve read. Shelby Pearce, the heroine, is an ex-con, and has just been released from [...]
The post Trace of Doubt – Diann Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
Wanna trip, baby? Following the breakout success of The Circle Trilogy, Dekker returned to a book he’d had rejected multiple times, cleaned it up, and pitched it to Thomas Nelson as the first book in [...]
The post Showdown – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Who am I? Where do I come from? To whom do I answer? Why am I here? How to I embrace and use my talents and gifts? – These are all universal questions but they’re [...]
The post Saint – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
I went back and forth regarding rating The Mozart Code by Rachel McMillan. Four or five stars? For or five stars? I finally settled on a happy medium—4.5. Outside of novels by Kate Quinn and [...]
The post The Mozart Code – Rachel McMillan appeared first on Life Is Story.
The protagonists of this book are a mortician at a secret military base and a military artist-in-residence called upon to bear witness to the horrors of war. With characters like that, there’s a lot that [...]
The post The Lightning Rod – Brad Meltzer appeared first on Life Is Story.
The plot thickens as the twisted alliances between Johnis, Shaeda, the Shataiki, and Sucrow (the latest Horde high priest) begin to unravel and reform. Each one is out for their own personal gain and will [...]
The post Elyon (The Lost Books #6) – Ted Dekker and Kaci Hill appeared first on Life Is Story.
Five years have passed since the Chosen One and his crew were last in Other Earth. Chaos ended triumphantly, with them successfully thwarting Alucard’s evil plot to destroy our earth, and the last page turned [...]
The post Lunatic (The Lost Books #5) – Ted Dekker and Kaci Hill appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Lost Books were released two books at a time with each pairing forming their own distinct story arc. Chosen introduces readers to the world of Other Earth and sets up the characters and the [...]
The post Chaos (The Lost Books #4) – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Renegade is where the Lost Books start to go off the rails a little bit. That’s not all a bad thing. Dekker does a full-on deep dive into the Circle mythos, revealing a complex story [...]
The post Renegade (The Lost Books #3) – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
No sooner than the four young heroes return home, having saved the Forests and accomplished their secret mission, that they are again hurtled on another adventure. Johnis’ mother, thought to be killed by the Horde [...]
The post Infidel (The Lost Books #2) – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
In the three years following the release of the Circle Trilogy, nearly everything Ted Dekker wrote had some connection to the world of the Circle but Dekker—despite the clamoring of fans—taken the plunge back into [...]
The post Chosen (The Lost Books #1) – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Obsessed may be Ted Dekker’s most overlooked novel. Coming just a few months after the conclusion of the Circle Trilogy, Obsessed was a return to the “old Dekker,” suspense thrillers with a theme taken directly [...]
The post Obsessed – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is going to be a weird review, because I want to talk about the implications of Domestic Enemies more than I do the actual plot. Why? Because the actual plot isn’t that noteworthy. It’s [...]
The post Domestic Enemies – Kent Wyatt appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s not often that I review a book that has been out for some time and it has zero Amazon reviews, zero Goodreads reviews, zero reviews anywhere on the internet that I can find. The [...]
The post The Cave Chamber (A Soul’s Warfare #2) – Rosemary Althoff appeared first on Life Is Story.
Time traveling back to Bible times isn’t new in Christian fiction, but it’s rarely done well. Indeed, the only positive example I can think of comes from Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quartet novel, Many Waters. Incidentally, [...]
The post The World Before the Flood – John Thomas appeared first on Life Is Story.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr is one of the most unique books I have ever read. Considering how ardent a reader I am, that is saying something. Let me preface this review by saying [...]
The post Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr appeared first on Life Is Story.
This was my first David Abraham book. The summary caught my attention, so I thought I would dip my toe into another epic fantasy series. I try not to read other people’s reviews before beginning [...]
The post Age of Ash – David Abraham appeared first on Life Is Story.
All thriller. No filler. James Patterson is known for his utilitarian writing style and blazingly fast plots. Many of his books have multiple plots all threaded together, and, at least in the case of the [...]
The post The Medical Examiner (Women’s Murder Club #16.5) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
All thriller. No filler. James Patterson is known for his utilitarian writing style and blazingly fast plots. Many of his books have multiple plots all threaded together, and, at least in the case of the [...]
The post The Trial (Women’s Murder Club #15.5) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Always be careful what you wish for. If you’ve read the reviews I’ve done for the last few books in this series, you’ll have noticed that I continually hit upon two themes: 1) Lindsay’s family [...]
The post 15th Affair (Women’s Murder Club #15) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s Claire Washburn’s birthday and there’s been another murder. As Lindsay and the rest of the cop crew head off to investigate, Claire remarks that this is the third birthday in a row where there’s [...]
The post 14th Deadly Sin (Women’s Murder Club #14) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Unlucky 13 is the continuing saga of the Women’s Murder Club, although the series has long ago become less about the women coming together to solve a murder and more about each member of the [...]
The post Unlucky 13 (Women’s Murder Club #13) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
There’s the old saying that says “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” There’s a lesser-known saying that says “If it’s broke and nobody notices, it ain’t broke.” The twelfth Women’s Murder Club novel feels [...]
The post 12th of Never (Women’s Murder Club #12) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is really a tale of two books. There’s plotting and there’s characterization. In terms of plotting, 11th Hour is a step ahead of most of the Women’s Murder Club novels. The primary plot is [...]
The post 11th Hour (Women’s Murder Club #11) – James Patterson and Maxine Paetro appeared first on Life Is Story.
The quality of the Women’s Murder Club series is best defined as a roller coaster. With all the ups and downs, twists and turns, you never know what you’re going to get. Patterson and Paetro [...]
The post 10th Anniversary (Women’s Murder Club #10) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Every time I’m about to give up on this series, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro actually deliver a good novel. The 9th Judgment isn’t devoid of soap opera style drama that’s been slopped over the [...]
The post The 9th Judgment (Women’s Murder Club #9) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Eight novels into the Women’s Murder Club and five novels into Maxine Paetro’s co-authorship, the series has begun to develop into more than a series of disparate storylines. While every novel ends with the case [...]
The post The 8th Confession (Women’s Murder Club #8) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
After the disappointment that was The 6th Target, pretty much any plotline that makes the good guys look like the good guys would look stellar in comparison. 7th Heaven is almost return to form for [...]
The post 7th Heaven (Women’s Murder Club #7) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
2007 was a big year for Other Earth. It’s three years after Ted Dekker’s breakout Circle Trilogy—about a million copies sold—and he’s just about to release the first two in what will eventually become a [...]
The post The Circle Trilogy Visual Edition – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
White begins seamlessly where Red, left off—with the Raison Strain beginning to wreak its havoc with no known cure in sight in one world, while in another world the Circle copes with a radical new [...]
The post White (The Circle Series #3) – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Black leaves the reader with one world torn apart by Shataiki. Paradise is lost on Other Earth while this earth begins to suffer the effects of the Raison Strain. Red wastes little time plunging the [...]
The post Red (The Circle Series #2) – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The first sentence of the back cover blurb should have told me everything I needed to know about this book: Kaity Anderson was a new bride on her wedding day. That’s right. She was a [...]
The post Starganauts – C.E. Stone appeared first on Life Is Story.
It all began with a single, silenced bullet out of nowhere…And with that sentence my life changed. I don’t make that statement lightly. The Circle Trilogy served as the catalyst that threw me back into [...]
The post Black (The Circle Series #1) – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
It first caught my eye in a bargain bin at Walmart in 2004. An inauspicious start to be sure…especially considering that it had released less than a year prior. But the story, one about a [...]
The post Blink – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Kevin Parson escaped a twisted childhood and found some sense of normalcy in the outside world. He’s assimilated. Built his own life outside of the cultish confines of his stepparents’ household. Graduated from college. Is [...]
The post Thr3e – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
I wish I could tell you how I stumbled upon @dinosandcomics, but that happy accident has been relegated to the mysteries of time…and the Instagram algorithm. It soon became one of my favorite parts of [...]
The post Dinosaur Therapy – @dinosancomics (James Stewart and K Romey) appeared first on Life Is Story.
I was afraid this would happen. After James Patterson and Maxine Paetro showed us what the Women’s Murder Club series could be in The 5th Horseman, they returned to the same implausibly sensational storylines with [...]
The post The 6th Target (Women’s Murder Club #6) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is what I wanted out of this series. Maxine Paetro’s second Women’s Murder Club novel—the fifth overall—showcases the potential this series has always had but never lived up to. The 5th Horseman sees Lindsay [...]
The post The 5th Horseman (Women’s Murder Club #5) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Up to this point, the Women’s Murder Club series has been a somewhat uneven story about a San Francisco homicide detective and her friends. 1st to Die brought them all together—a cop, a medical examiner, [...]
The post 4th of July (Women’s Murder Club #4) – Maxine Paetro and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
I love relational novels, novels that are just the stories of people. Don’t get me wrong. I like speculative fiction and thrillers, but sometimes you just want to settle in with a book that is [...]
The post Paint Me Fearless – Hallie Lee appeared first on Life Is Story.
Let me preface this review by saying I am a horse person. I own a horse. I have been riding for close to 20 years. Granted, I’ve mostly ridden in a Western saddle, not English, [...]
The post The Horsewoman – James Patterson and Mike Lupica appeared first on Life Is Story.
Holt and Penny started out as friends, nothing more. They had occasional phone calls, a few casual get-togethers, but little more then the little, surface-level conversations. But then there’s a serial killer…who happens to be [...]
The post Life Flight – Lynette Eason appeared first on Life Is Story.
I read Sunrise by Susan May Warren and Life Flight by Lynette Eason back to back, not realizing that both books featured pilots—though the male character is the aviator in Sunrise, and the female in [...]
The post Sunrise – Susan May Warren appeared first on Life Is Story.
As tension mounts between Israel and the surrounding Arab nations, David ben Solomon is convinced the only way for it to dissipate is to take it to the boiling point. Muslims have been in control [...]
The post A Man Called Blessed – Ted Dekker and Bill Bright appeared first on Life Is Story.
You probably didn’t know that Ted Dekker owes part of his career to Tim LaHaye and the Left Behind franchise. As the Left Behind series was booming the late 1990s, Campus Crusade for Christ founder [...]
The post Blessed Child – Ted Dekker and Bill Bright appeared first on Life Is Story.
By 2005, Ted Dekker was turning himself into a household name in Christian fiction circles. The previous year had been billed “The Year of the Trilogy” with the release of Black, Red, and White and [...]
The post The Martyr’s Song – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Thunder of Heaven was Dekker’s third published novel and the conclusion to his loosely-connected trilogy, The Martyr’s Song. While the connections between Heaven’s Wager and When Heaven Weeps were already tenuous (the latter being the [...]
The post Thunder of Heaven – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Women’s Murder Club is back! Andrew Gross returns for a second collaboration with James Patterson and this time the story revolves around stopping a terrorist group that’s fighting for economic justice. I’m going to [...]
The post 3rd Degree (Women’s Murder Club #3) – Andrew Gross and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
After 1st to Die released to poor reviews from critics (but still hitting #1 on the NYT list), James Patterson did what he does best: hand it off to a different author. Andrew Gross had, [...]
The post 2nd Chance (Women’s Murder Club #2) – Andrew Gross and James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Women’s Murder Club began because James Patterson got tired of getting outsold by John Grisham on the West Coast. The result has been two decades of novels, a TV series, a movie, and—inexplicably—five different [...]
The post 1st To Die (Women’s Murder Club #1) – James Patterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
I read the first chapter of The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water, then put the book away for a bit. Part of it was to process the magnificent opening. Most of it was because [...]
The post The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water – Erin Bartels appeared first on Life Is Story.
Ted Dekker has written over fifty books and sold millions of copies, but back in May 2000 his debut novel was just one of a number of books sitting spine-out on the Christian fiction rack. [...]
The post Heaven’s Wager – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
These days, John Grisham sells books on the basis of his name rather than the basis of his stories. While his writing is strongest when he sticks with proper legal thrillers, Grisham has the penchant [...]
The post The Judge’s List – John Grisham appeared first on Life Is Story.
In the preface to The Heaven Trilogy, a 3-in-1 re-release that includes Heaven’s Wager and Thunder of Heaven, Dekker remarks that many readers—even those who aren’t fans of any of his other books—find When Heaven [...]
The post When Heaven Weeps – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s been four years since Francine Rivers last released a novel and longer than that since she’s delivered a historical romance similar to her enduring classic, Redeeming Love. To say that The Lady’s Mine is [...]
The post The Lady’s Mine – Francine Rivers appeared first on Life Is Story.
Ainsley and Lincoln face a crime with twists and turns that would leave even the brightest minds baffled. On top of that, they have a history together—of misunderstandings and love left behind. Can they look [...]
The post Crosshairs – Patricia Bradley appeared first on Life Is Story.
I picked up Autopsy by Patricia Cornwell due to its intriguing summary. I had no idea it was the 25th book in a series until after I had already started the novel. Autopsy stands well [...]
The post Autopsy – Patricia Cornwell appeared first on Life Is Story.
I waited a while before writing this review, as I wanted time to absorb The Liar’s Knot by M.A. Carrick. I liked its precursor, The Mask of Mirrors, but the second book of Carrick’s Rook & Rose series deserves [...]
The post The Liar’s Knot – M.A. Carrick appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s difficult to summarize the plot of Smoke Screen. I’ve tried a dozen different ways and keep coming up short. Terri Blackstock has delivered a full story with a complex plot that proves to be [...]
The post Smoke Screen – Terri Blackstock appeared first on Life Is Story.
The London House is an incredible novel. While it’s not your typical dual-time novel, it does span two different time periods, and it’s historical aspect is strictly epistolary and beautifully depicted. In the present day, [...]
The post The London House – Katherine Reay appeared first on Life Is Story.
Under the Magnolias is absolutely amazing – Raw, filled with authenticity, with realistic characters. It’s the first T.I. Lowe novel I’ve read, but definitely won’t be the last! Set in the 1980s, Under the Magnolias is the [...]
The post Under the Magnolias – T.I. Lowe appeared first on Life Is Story.
I had no clue how David Baldacci was going to write his way out of the increasingly convoluted overarching storyline in his Atlee Pine novels. Mercy, the fourth and final book in the series is [...]
The post Mercy (Atlee Pine #4) – David Baldacci appeared first on Life Is Story.
I believe I have mentioned this before in a review: “America is the best” novels are some of my favorites. The genre hooked me from the moment my mother introduced me to Brad Thor and [...]
The post Lights Out – Natalie Walters appeared first on Life Is Story.
The final book of And They Found Dragons begins with the future of humanity teetering on the brink. All earth-bound humanity is under the subjugation of the Reds, a race of dragons that were literally [...]
The post Rise of the Light Bringer (And They Found Dragons #3) – Rachelle and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Jack Solomon is on Earth for the first time in his life and he’s dying. Everything is wrong. The impossible mission they’d been sent to complete seems more impossible than ever. And did I mention [...]
The post Journey to the Silver Towers (And They Found Dragons #2) – Rachelle and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
In the wake of a nuclear war that destroyed the earth, a remnant escaped to the stars. When time came to return home, they discovered something most unusual. In humanity’s absence, dragons have taken over [...]
The post The Boy Who Fell From the Stars (And They Found Dragons #1) – Rachelle and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
There is a battle of monumental proportions raging just beyond the skin of this world. Inevitably, this battle seeps into what we can see in this physical realm and confronts us, confounds us, and disturbs [...]
The post Dark to Mortal Eyes – Eric Wilson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Are these the shadows of things that must be, or are they the shadows of things that might be? – Ebenezer Scrooge After a mysterious encounter with an even more mysterious individual, Clay Ryker finds [...]
The post Expiration Date – Eric Wilson appeared first on Life Is Story.
He was a killer from the very start. He couldn’t stand the truth because there wasn’t a shred of truth in him. – John 8:44 Black is back in a whole new adventure. Less than [...]
The post A Shred of Truth – Eric Wilson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Don’t let evil get the best of you. get the best of evil by doing good. – Romans 12:21 “Live by the Sword” – “Die by the Sword” Aramis Black’s former creed is tattooed into [...]
The post The Best of Evil – Eric Wilson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Going to try to turn off my romantic-suspense cynicism for this review, because Deadly Target by Elizabeth Goddard does not deserve it. While unrealistic in many ways, Goddard’s second installment of her Rocky Mountain Courage [...]
The post Deadly Target – Elizabeth Goddard appeared first on Life Is Story.
After She Falls by Carmen Schober is not the type of book to which I would normally be drawn. I’m an equestrian, not a fighter. One of my coworkers trains in mixed martial arts, but I [...]
The post After She Falls – Carmen Schober appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Paris Betrayal is a stunning novel of spies, espionage, and action! Did I mention danger? It jumped out at me from every page! I felt like I was in the middle of The Bourne [...]
The post The Paris Betrayal – James Hannibal appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick caught my attention first due to its cover–and after reading the novel, the title couldn’t be more perfect. Some of my favorite stories involve masks, so of course a [...]
The post The Mask of Mirrors – M.A. Carrick appeared first on Life Is Story.
Terri Blackstock has been a banner name in Christian fiction for over twenty years. I’ve found some of her books riveting and some of her books lacking. Recently, I decided to go back to some [...]
The post Line of Duty (Newpointe 911 #5) – Terri Blackstock appeared first on Life Is Story.
Terri Blackstock has been a banner name in Christian fiction for over twenty years. I’ve found some of her books riveting and some of her books lacking. Recently, I decided to go back to some [...]
The post Trial by Fire (Newpointe 911 #4) – Terri Blackstock appeared first on Life Is Story.
Terri Blackstock has been a banner name in Christian fiction for over twenty years. I’ve found some of her books riveting and some of her books lacking. Recently, I decided to go back to some [...]
The post Word of Honor (Newpointe 911 #3) – Terri Blackstock appeared first on Life Is Story.
Terri Blackstock has been a banner name in Christian fiction for over twenty years. I’ve found some of her books riveting and some of her books lacking. Recently, I decided to go back to some [...]
The post Shadow of Doubt (Newpointe 911 #2) – Terri Blackstock appeared first on Life Is Story.
Terri Blackstock has been a banner name in Christian fiction for over twenty years. I’ve found some of her books riveting and some of her books lacking. Recently, I decided to go back to some [...]
The post Private Justice (Newpointe 911 #1) – Terri Blackstock appeared first on Life Is Story.
If Star Trek cared as much about linguistics as Tolkien, you’d end with something like No Road Among the Stars. A. Walker Scott’s stunning debut novel is a deeply immersive journey into a vast world [...]
The post No Road Among the Stars – A. Walker Scott appeared first on Life Is Story.
Gosh darn it, I love DiAnn Mills! Her work never fails to entertain and satisfy. Trace of Doubt is no exception. After spending fifteen years in prison, Shelby Pearce is ready to begin a new life, in a [...]
The post Trace of Doubt – DiAnn Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
A Midnight Dance is a beautiful ballet theatre story with hints of mystery woven in, just one more stunning masterpiece by the talented writer Joanna Davidson Politano. I loved reading about Ella and her life [...]
The post A Midnight Dance – Joanna Davidson Politano appeared first on Life Is Story.
Labyrinth of Lies by Irene Hannon is a typical Christian romantic suspense novel: Fast-paced. A crime of some variety forces two characters together who have a…complicated history. One, never truly gave up on the relationship, even with [...]
The post Labyrinth of Lies – Irene Hannon appeared first on Life Is Story.
I will be perfectly honest and say historical fiction isn’t typically my genre. Suspense novels draw my attention immediately because they have certain qualities that make them in a word, exhilarating. But every so often, [...]
The post Yours is the Night – Amanda Dykes appeared first on Life Is Story.
Thousands of years ago, a wager in heaven centered on the soul of one man. Virtually overnight, the man blessed with plenty saw his life crumble before his eyes as wealth, health, and even family [...]
The post One Step Away – Eric Wilson appeared first on Life Is Story.
My experience with Orson Scott Card up to this point had only been through his classic Ender’s Game saga. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him outside of that genre and those characters and [...]
The post Duplex – Orson Scott Card appeared first on Life Is Story.
Turns out that the nature of small birds is to fly. It’s no different for our kids. And, whether I’m aware of it or not, it’s the nature of God to see every dip and [...]
The post The Nature of Small Birds – Susie Finkbeiner appeared first on Life Is Story.
Enthralling. I have no other words to describe Legacy of Light by Matthew Ward. Fantasy has never been my genre of choice, as now that I am older, I have trouble turning off the logical [...]
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Kathy Tyers has been a familiar name in science fiction for nearly forty years. While she’s best known for her short stories and novels in the Star Wars Extended Universe, she’s also written a number [...]
The post Crystal Witness – Kathy Tyers appeared first on Life Is Story.
What this book lacks in plot, it makes up for many times over in atmosphere. The only criticism I have of The Door on Half-Bald Hill is that the story—a fairly standard journey narrative—is overshadowed [...]
The post The Door on Half-Bald Hill – Helena Sorensen appeared first on Life Is Story.
Lindsay Franklin’s The Weaver Trilogy began with Tanwen weaving stories into crystalline figures, hoping to become Royal Storyteller for the King. By the trilogy’s end in The Story Hunter, she must rescue the Queen, unmask [...]
The post The Story Weaver – Lindsay Franklin appeared first on Life Is Story.
Grab a steaming cup of coffee, tea, or mulled wine. Settle into a comfortable chair in your pandemic pants and fuzzy socks. Prepare yourself for a story of excitement, heartbreak, intensity, and high stakes. A [...]
The post A Most Clever Girl – Stephanie Marie Thornton appeared first on Life Is Story.
To understand just how much I anticipated Legacy of Steel by Matthew Ward, allow me to quote messages I sent to a friend regarding the first book, Legacy of Ash. “SHE ISN’T DEAD. I KNEW [...]
The post Legacy of Steel – Matthew Ward appeared first on Life Is Story.
I put some big shoes on A Brutal Justice when I effusively praised its predecessor, A Gentle Tyranny. The two books comprise the Nede Rising duology and tells the story of Raina Pierce, granddaughter of [...]
The post A Brutal Justice (Nede Rising #2) – Jess Corban appeared first on Life Is Story.
As I sat and mused over Under the Bayou Moon, still holding it in my hand, my daughter asked me, “Are you crying?” No, I said, just thinking….and this is definitely one of those books [...]
The post Under the Bayou Moon – Valerie Fraser Luesse appeared first on Life Is Story.
I’m always blown away by the detailed suspense written by Carrie Stuart Parks. What an adventure! I loved the setting. Yellowstone Park and the surrounding area is just beautiful. I had the privilege of visiting [...]
The post Woman In Shadow – Carrie Stuart Parks appeared first on Life Is Story.
Provenance by Carla Laureano is a stand-alone book, and the back cover copy, along with my previous love of all books by Ms. Laureano, had me eagerly waiting my chance to read. I absolutely loved [...]
The post Provenance – Carla Laureano appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Dancing Realms came to me with highest praise. The back of the book contains endorsements from fantasy authors like Wayne Thomas Batson and Jill Williamson, with the key endorsement coming from NYT bestselling author [...]
The post Forsaken Island – Sharon Hinck appeared first on Life Is Story.
Manna Reign is one of those books where the pieces fit together a little too nicely, the characters are little too flat, and the plot twists a little too predictable. It’s not a terrible book, [...]
The post Manna Reign – Dineen Miller appeared first on Life Is Story.
Before reading Dawn of Vengeance, I sat down and reread last year’s review of book one in the Droseran Saga, Brand of Light. I’m in a bit of a conundrum when it goes to Ronie’s [...]
The post Dawn of Vengeance (Droseran Saga #2) – Ronie Kendig appeared first on Life Is Story.
Any reader of this novel will find themselves ending the book with the feeling of having made new friends… I feel so very privileged to have had the opportunity of reading an early reader’s version [...]
The post The Nature of Small Birds – Susie Finkbeiner appeared first on Life Is Story.
There is nobody else in Christian fiction who writes the kind of stories Shawn Smucker is writing. Shawn’s stories are ethereal, evocative, full of symbolism and magical realism. The narrative isn’t always straightforward. Not everything [...]
The post The Weight of Memory – Shawn Smucker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Heavy—that’s how I would describe If It Rains by Jennifer L. Wright. I will also preface this by saying that this is not a happy novel. This is a story you should ingest slowly to [...]
The post If It Rains – Jennifer L. Wright appeared first on Life Is Story.
I sat for 10 minutes prior to writing this review, attempting to find an appropriate simile for Lisa Harris’s The Chase. Whirlwind. Roller coaster. Hurricane. Nothing seems to fit! The best on which I can [...]
The post The Chase – Lisa Harris appeared first on Life Is Story.
I went back and forth between four and five stars for Breach of Honor by Janice Cantore for a long while, thus I decided to settle on a happy medium: 4.5 stars. Officer Leah Radcliff [...]
The post Breach of Honor – Janice Cantore appeared first on Life Is Story.
The name Melanie Dickerson is synonymous with Christian fairytale retellings. Over the past few years, Dickerson has been able to recreate numerous fairytales and her newest retelling, a twist on the Ugly Duckling, is a [...]
The post Castle of Refuge – Melanie Dickerson appeared first on Life Is Story.
When I was younger, I loved fantasy. I thrived on traveling into a new world, my imagination turning the words on the page into colorful, vibrant pictures. In really good books, I would create a [...]
The post Legacy of Ash – Matthew Ward appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn is historical fiction, set during and after WWII. It follows the friendship between three women, all working at Bletchley Park, the top-secret home of England’s brightest codebreakers. Osla, Mab, [...]
The post The Rose Code – Kate Quinn appeared first on Life Is Story.
And so we come to the end of The Sunlit Lands. After two years, Matt Mikalatos is finally giving readers the long-awaited conclusion to The Sunlit Lands with The Story King. Where to even begin? [...]
The post The Story King (Sunlit Lands #3) – Matt Mikalatos appeared first on Life Is Story.
Attention: contains spoilers for The Crescent Stone (The Sunlit Lands #1) Okay. The most difficult part of writing a review for The Crescent Stone was not spoiling the great big twist that serves as the [...]
The post The Heartwood Crown (Sunlit Lands #2) – Matt Mikalatos appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Sunlit Lands had been on my radar for a while, but I had missed The Crescent Stone when it first came out and, as a reviewer, it’s often difficult to get back to old [...]
The post The Crescent Stone (Sunlit Lands #1) – Matt Mikalatos appeared first on Life Is Story.
Chariline has always been different, her caramel skin and dark, curled hair easily identifying her as part Cushite. When she overhears that her birth father is still alive—a fact about which her relatives had lied—she [...]
The post Jewel of the Nile – Tessa Afshar appeared first on Life Is Story.
Some books are marathons. Others are a flat-out sprint. Aftermath is the latter: a focused, pulse-pounding, action-packed thriller that will make you wish you could read faster then leave you exhausted, satisfied, yet a bit [...]
The post Aftermath – Terri Blackstock appeared first on Life Is Story.
Gulp! My heart was in my throat as I read this book…Let It Be Me touched me way down deep. I just love this series by Becky Wade! These stories about the kids on a [...]
The post Let It Be Me – Becky Wade appeared first on Life Is Story.
Paint and Nectar is an enchanting story. I loved revisiting Charleston and these lovely people. While you will definitely want to read the first book – The Dress Shop on King Street – it isn’t entirely [...]
The post Paint and Nectar – Ashley Clark appeared first on Life Is Story.
In Aftermath by Terri Blackstock, our hero, Dustin, appears to have been framed for a crime he did not commit: setting off a bomb at a political rally that killed over twenty people. Who is [...]
The post Aftermath – Terri Blackstock appeared first on Life Is Story.
Never Miss is Melissa Koslin’s first published novel, and what an entrance it was! She did not slip into the fiction field quietly. Instead, Koslin presents a breathless adventure with exceedingly high stakes and ten [...]
The post Never Miss – Melissa Koslin appeared first on Life Is Story.
I only have two words for The Paris Betrayal by James R. Hannibal: HOLY SMOKES. This novel kept my heart jumping into my throat and my gut twisting. The Paris Betrayal was my thirty-third book [...]
The post The Paris Betrayal – James R. Hannibal appeared first on Life Is Story.
Courtney Walsh does it again. I laughed, I cried, I empathized. I loved these people. Louisa Chambers was a heroine I absolutely loved. And her relationship with Cody Boggs…smashingly sweet. They’d been best friends growing [...]
The post Is It Any Wonder – Courtney Walsh appeared first on Life Is Story.
Night Bird Calling is such a bittersweet story with many hard things – A story that is both really good and very difficult to read. Good because it is so very well written. I just [...]
The post Night Bird Calling – Cathy Gohlke appeared first on Life Is Story.
A thoughtful mind-trip of a thriller, Play Dead is the Dekker novel you’ve been craving. It’s been two years since Ted Dekker’s last non-children’s book and nine years since his last real solo thriller. It’s [...]
The post Play Dead – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
A Piece of the Moon is a love letter to old-time small-town radio wrapped within a character-driven story of brokenness and redemption that takes place amid an enthralling treasure hunt. The hunt itself is almost [...]
The post A Piece of the Moon – Chris Fabry appeared first on Life Is Story.
Literature professor Karen Swallow Prior is creating a classics series with B&H Publishing, adding her own introduction, reader’s guide, reflection questions, and footnotes to classic novels to make them more accessible to modern Christians. I [...]
The post Jane Eyre: A Guide to Reading and Reflecting – Charlotte Brontë and Karen Swallow Prior appeared first on Life Is Story.
The potential for A Gentle Tyranny’s premise to go horribly wrong is tremendous, but it’s a calculated risk that pays off enormously at the end. I feel it’s only right that I mention that at [...]
The post A Gentle Tyranny (Nede Rising #1) – Jess Corban appeared first on Life Is Story.
Present Danger is the first novel of Elizabeth Goddard’s “Rocky Mountain Courage” series, and what a way to kick it off! I woke up at 4:00AM one morning, so I opened this novel on my Kindle. [...]
The post Present Danger – Elizabeth Goddard appeared first on Life Is Story.
Shay Mitchell’s life has fallen apart. The trauma of losing your mother before you ever knew her really never goes away, but Shay and her dad had built a life for themselves together. Then he [...]
The post Searching for Normal – CJ Darlington appeared first on Life Is Story.
Pepper Basham does it again! I was enchanted almost from the first page. This is an incredibly beautiful story, one that ties together the past, and the present. This is a story of love, and [...]
The post Hope Between The Pages – Pepper Basham appeared first on Life Is Story.
As a novelist myself, I know just how much time, heart, and research goes into writing a novel like Night Fall by Nancy Mehl. It hurts me to negatively review books, but Night Fall disappointed [...]
The post Night Fall – Nancy Mehl appeared first on Life Is Story.
Les Miserables is a beautifully poignant story of love and freedom that has lasted through the ages. From the first time it was published by Victor Hugo until today, it has enjoyed continuous success in [...]
The post Les Miserables An Engaging Visual Journey – Victor Hugo appeared first on Life Is Story.
Soul Raging picks up right where the story left off: Leif, our hero, has been activated from sleeper status by the Armageddon Coalition. The hero has become the villain…or has he? As the team deals [...]
The post Soul Raging (Book of the Wars #3) – Ronie Kendig appeared first on Life Is Story.
Taking off right where Ronie Kendig left us in book one, and with just as much fury and speed, Kings Falling continues the story of Leif, Iskra, and their teams as they seek to find [...]
The post Kings Falling (Book of the Wars #2) – Ronie Kendig appeared first on Life Is Story.
Ronie Kendig has long self-styled her thrillers as Rapid-Fire Fiction and, whatever else Storm Rising and the rest of The Book of the Wars series is or isn’t, rapid-fire is definitely a good description. Kendig [...]
The post Storm Rising (Book of the Wars #1) – Ronie Kendig appeared first on Life Is Story.
Roots of Wood and Stone is a beautiful debut story about….roots. Yes, roots of wood and stone, but it goes so much deeper than that. It’s all about roots of… love, family, friendship, and most [...]
The post Roots of Wood and Stone – Amanda Wen appeared first on Life Is Story.
A Dance in Donegal is a lovely debut novel set in the enchanting country of Ireland back in the early 1900s. Deibel brings Ireland to life with its lush, green countryside. Ireland has long been [...]
The post A Dance in Donegal – Jennifer Deibel appeared first on Life Is Story.
I found Facing the Dawn to be an incredibly beautiful, painful, bittersweet story. It shows hope, forgiveness, love, and so much more. It shows us the unshakeableness of God in hard times. This was a [...]
The post Facing the Dawn – Cynthia Ruchti appeared first on Life Is Story.
I love suspense novels, especially ones about law enforcement agents, and this one is a really good one! The first is Lynn Blackburn’s Defend and Protect series, Unknown Threat, delivers a high level of action and causes lots of [...]
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Active Defense is one of those novels that is a high level of excitement from the first page to the very last. What a ride! This is another amazing story from Lynette Eason. I’m always [...]
The post Active Defense – Lynette Eason appeared first on Life Is Story.
I’ve been a fan of the Marcus Ryker series from the beginning. It’s one of the best characters that Joel Rosenberg has created and the events—like much of his writing—has been eerily accurate. Joel’s grasp [...]
The post The Beirut Protocol (Marcus Ryker #4) – Joel Rosenberg appeared first on Life Is Story.
Easy Target is a good example of a novel that never quite understood the kind of tone it wanted to set. At the outset, we’re thrown into a world set from the kid-perspective, where parents [...]
The post Easy Target – Tim Shoemaker appeared first on Life Is Story.
With this book, Patricia Bradley remains one of my favorite authors in this romantic suspense genre. I loved this story! I loved the characters, and I also loved the setting. This book has it all [...]
The post Obsession – Patricia Bradley appeared first on Life Is Story.
I found in the pages of The Orchard House a story I didn’t even know I needed to hear. Heidi Chiavaroli’s amazing tale started out a bit slowly for me, but its tremendous lesson spoke [...]
The post The Orchard House – Heidi Chiavaroli appeared first on Life Is Story.
I would not say I am the biggest Robert Whitlow fan, but I will say I am a big one, as I’ve read all of his books. That being said, maybe I entered into reading [...]
The post Trial and Error – Robert Whitlow appeared first on Life Is Story.
Amy Lynn Green’s Things We Didn’t Say avoids common pitfalls for Christian fiction, provides a nuanced and realistic look at faith, and has mainstream appeal. The characters are very compelling, and Amy Lynn Green does an [...]
The post Things We Didn’t Say – Amy Lynn Green appeared first on Life Is Story.
During the past few years, I have read a good amount of biblical retellings of the story of Miriam, the sister of Moses. In spring 2021, Jill Eileen Smith will join this group with her [...]
The post Miriam’s Song – Jill Eileen Smith appeared first on Life Is Story.
Like all biblical fiction reviews, let me recap what I think makes for good biblical fiction. First, it doesn’t blatantly contradict anything in Scripture. Second, it tells its own story while being faithful to the [...]
The post Miriam’s Song – Jill Eileen Smith appeared first on Life Is Story.
Although I’m a big fan of legal thrillers—I’ve read everything Randy Singer has ever offered and am currently working my way through John Grisham’s oeuvre—I had only read a couple of Robert Whitlow novels, and [...]
The post Trial and Error – Robert Whitlow appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Prince of Spies by Elizabeth Camden is the third book of her Hope and Glory series. As it concludes the series, I expected happy endings for all involved—Nathaniel and Caroline, Gray and Anabelle, and [...]
The post The Prince of Spies – Elizabeth Camden appeared first on Life Is Story.
My colleague, Rosalyn Schlabach, already reviewed A Gilded Lady by Elizabeth Camden (her review here). In preparation for the third part of the author’s Hope and Glory series, I read the first two books before [...]
The post A Gilded Lady – Elizabeth Camden appeared first on Life Is Story.
For the most part, I primarily read romantic suspense novels for Life is Story, but I decided I needed a break from the genre. The Spice King by Elizabeth Camden caught my attention, despite my usual [...]
The post The Spice King – Elizabeth Camden appeared first on Life Is Story.
Network of Deceit by Tom Threadgill was an entertaining read, but it left much to be desired. Amara Alvarez is a new homicide detective, determined to prove herself as an investigator. When a high schooler [...]
The post Network of Deceit – Tom Threadgill appeared first on Life Is Story.
Patricia Bradley’s Obsession was her third book I’ve read, and goodness, what a thrill ride it was! I absolutely loved this novel. All Emma Winters wants to do is use an imaging tool to document the [...]
The post Obsession – Patricia Bradley appeared first on Life Is Story.
Evelyn Brand had done a crack bit of journalism, and she hadn’t even had to dress like a man to do so. – This is the first line of Sarah Sundin’s WWII romantic thriller When [...]
The post When Twilight Breaks – Sarah Sundin appeared first on Life Is Story.
Hours to Kill by Susan Sleeman is the final book in her Homeland Heroes trilogy. Out of the three novels, this one was definitely my favorite, though maybe it was in part due to my partiality [...]
The post Hours to Kill – Susan Sleeman appeared first on Life Is Story.
Terrorists targeting the United States? Millions of lives potentially endangered? One week to stop the attack? A sprinkling of romance? Minutes to Die by Susan Sleeman seemed right up my alley. Unfortunately, this book didn’t exceed [...]
The post Minutes to Die – Susan Sleeman appeared first on Life Is Story.
“One mistake. That was all it took to put Dustee’s life on the line–death right on her heels.” Well, that’s one way to draw in your readers! Seconds to Live by Susan Sleeman was the first [...]
The post Seconds to Live – Susan Sleeman appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Dress Shop on King Street by Ashley Clark is really a surprising novel for a debut. I found it to be an incredible story that is a richly woven tapestry of textures and designs. [...]
The post The Dress Shop on King Street – Ashley Clark appeared first on Life Is Story.
Carrie is perhaps better known for what it started than what it is. Although Stephen King had written three novels prior to Carrie (those being Rage, The Long Walk, and Blaze), Carrie was his first [...]
The post Carrie – Stephen King appeared first on Life Is Story.
I like books that start with bangs. Explosions, that is. Lynette Eason no doubt delivers this in both the figurative and literal sense with the third book of her Danger Never Sleeps series. The first [...]
The post Active Defense – Lynette Eason appeared first on Life Is Story.
I didn’t know what to expect from a Dekker family team-up. Now I don’t know if I want them to do anything else. That was one of the concluding lines of my review of the [...]
The post Millie Maven Trilogy – Rachelle and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The final volume in the Millie Maven trilogy picks up six days the completion of the trial in Millie Maven in the Golden Vial. This time there are no trials. This time is not a [...]
The post Millie Maven and the White Sword – Rachelle and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The second Millie Maven book opens with Millie yet to discover her gift, but in possession of something much greater: a bronze medallion from the Great Teacher himself. It’s caused some consternation among some of [...]
The post Millie Maven and the Golden Vial – Rachelle and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The first book in the Millie Maven trilogy introduces us to Millie. Millie is, like so many young people in these kinds of stories, an orphan with a strict, loveless caretaker. Mother—actually her aunt—has very [...]
The post Mille Maven and the Bronze Medallion – Rachelle and Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
All Through the Night by Tara Johnson is a beautiful story about nursing during the Civil War. It was my first Tara Johnson novel, but it definitely won’t be my last! Bringing to life the realities [...]
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“Love welled up inside her, and she stood to her feet. Her knees weren’t even wobbly. She picked up the bag she had packed, straightened, and held her head up, meeting his eye. She put [...]
The post The Peasant’s Dream – Melanie Dickerson appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is definitely not my usual reading genre, but because I am a huge fan of Ronie Kendig’s, I knew I had to read Brand of Light! This book is Sci-fi at its best! A [...]
The post Brand of Light – Ronie Kendig appeared first on Life Is Story.
Any new book by Ronie Kendig is an automatic “must read” for me. And…in spite of the fact that space opera is not my favorite genre, this series is one that I absolutely love! Brand [...]
The post Dawn of Vengeance – Ronie Kendig appeared first on Life Is Story.
“Where there is wealth and power, there is also someone who is willing to do anything to take it.” In medieval England, there was very little middle class. You were either poor or rich and [...]
The post Court of Swans – Melanie Dickerson appeared first on Life Is Story.
All Through the Night is a Civil War novel following characters that one would not commonly expect to be hero and heroine. Tara Johnson’s writing style is absolutely enthralling and the backdrop of battles, wounded, [...]
The post All Through the Night – Tara Johnson appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s been ten years since Melanie and Olivia have had any meaningful sisterly interactions. It’s also been ten years since their parents were killed in crash that sent their car over a mountain. These two [...]
The post All That We Carried – Erin Bartels appeared first on Life Is Story.
I’m pretty sure I begin every review of Biblical fiction with this phrase: Biblical fiction is hard to write. If you stray too far from what’s known of the biblical story, readers will shout at [...]
The post The Shepherd’s Wife – Angela Hunt appeared first on Life Is Story.
David Baldacci has kind of a thing for developing dual plots. One plot will start and end during the book; the other is an overarching plotline that is slowly resolved throughout the series. The Atlee [...]
The post Daylight (Atlee Pine #3) – David Baldacci appeared first on Life Is Story.
Every once in a while, you come across a debut novel that is so enchanting, you wonder how it possibly could have been the author’s first. Whose Waves These Are is such a novel. From [...]
The post Whose Waves These Are – Amanda Dykes appeared first on Life Is Story.
Shine the Light is the book equivalent of a Hallmark movie. I really don’t need to say much more than this. There’s over-the-top all-too-easily resolved drama. There’s cheesy and easy romance. There’s several stock characters [...]
The post Shine the Light – April McGowan appeared first on Life Is Story.
Hearts Set Free is a novel that’s difficult to categorize. Part allegory (or at least so heavy-handed in its messaging that I’m going to call it allegory) and part historical fiction, the novel follows three [...]
The post Hearts Set Free – Jess Lederman appeared first on Life Is Story.
The title is Burden of Proof. The cover shows a man in a suit walking down stairs while talking on a cell phone. The novel’s summary says something like “Ethan must face his past and [...]
The post Burden of Proof – Davis Bunn appeared first on Life Is Story.
In Search of the Beloved is written by Marian Rizzo, a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist. Unfortunately, Rizzo can’t seem to shake her journalist roots, resulting in a book that is written as a series of [...]
The post In Search of the Beloved – Marian Rizzo appeared first on Life Is Story.
Normally when a book is bad, I just don’t review it. The Love Scam is different. It’s so bad I had to review it. The Love Scam is a poorly-written pile of cringeworthy sentences that [...]
The post The Love Scam – Jeffrey McClain Jones appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus is a story told in two times, in two halves. The past storyline is a reasonably told tale of mystery, deceit, and death (with just the right amount of kitsch). [...]
The post The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus – Jaime Jo Wright appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Escape begins with a bang and never lets up. That becomes its biggest strength and greatest weakness. US Marshals Madison James and Jonas Quinn find themselves unlikely partners on a prisoner transport mission. They’ve [...]
The post The Escape – Lisa Harris appeared first on Life Is Story.
There was a time in the early 2010s that well-known authors and publishers were flirting with the concept of ebook-only short stories/novellas that either brought additional flavor to well-known characters, added depth to well-known stories, [...]
The post Bullseye: Will Robie/Camel Club Crossover Short Story – David Baldacci appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Sowing Season—the story about a gruff old man who befriends a young teenage girl in a Hallmark movie kind of way—isn’t exactly my typical reading fare. But sometimes you just need something different and [...]
The post The Sowing Season – Katie Powner appeared first on Life Is Story.
I knew Bryan Litfin from his scholarly work, his professorship at Moody Bible Institute, and his work with The Gospel Coalition. When I saw that he was writing a historical fiction trilogy set within the [...]
The post The Conqueror – Bryan Litfin appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Cul-de-Sac War by Melissa Ferguson is a humorous and lighthearted story about neighbors who are at war with each other. This is one story where you really cannot go by first impressions…or can you? [...]
The post The Cul-de-Sac War – Melissa Ferguson appeared first on Life Is Story.
“My given name was Jesus. I never liked that name, even as a boy. It didn’t fit me somehow, and my later infamous connection to the son of Joseph the Carpenter made it unbearable. So, [...]
The post I Was Called Barabbas – M.D. House appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Defiance by Laura Gallier is the latest in the author’s “The Deception” series. The poor teenagers in these novels experience spiritual warfare in the physical sense. They see it, and it can affect their bodies. [...]
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The Deception by Laura Gallier is book #2 of The Delusion series, and it picks up not long after The Delusion concludes…if you could call the first book’s cliffhanger ending a “conclusion.” The Deception also ends in a cliffhanger, just a [...]
The post The Deception – Laura Gallier appeared first on Life Is Story.
Where do I start with The Delusion by Laura Gallier? Fans of Ted Dekker’s more thrilling books like Adam and The Bride Collector will like this novel. If you’re a Frank Peretti fan, too, The Delusion is right up your [...]
The post The Delusion – Laura Gallier appeared first on Life Is Story.
As I close this book, and lay it down, I’m left sitting here in awe and amazement. I’ll be honest, I only chose to read this book because I kept hearing glowing recommendations. The cover…well, [...]
The post The Sowing Season – Katie Powner appeared first on Life Is Story.
Dear J.S. Bailey, please stop killing characters in dramatic ways that rip my heart out of my chest. And then run my heart over with a full cement truck. Then blow up the cement truck [...]
The post Salvation (Chronicles of Servitude #5) – J.S. Bailey appeared first on Life Is Story.
J.S. Bailey does it again with Solemnity, book four of “The Chronicles of Servitude” series. This supernatural thriller left me wiggling in my seat with mentions of the occult and its tactics. I may have been [...]
The post Solemnity (Chronicles of Servitude #4) – J.S. Bailey appeared first on Life Is Story.
In Surrender, J.S. Bailey picks up where she left off with Bobby Roland. A bad guy wants to kill Bobby, one who can play with his mind. He’s come across his first demoniac to cleanse, but [...]
The post Surrender (Chronicles of Servitude #3) – J.S. Bailey appeared first on Life Is Story.
I could not open Sacrifice by J.S. Bailey fast enough. After the end of Servant, I had to keep going, and this one…oh, wow, Bailey did not disappoint. I swallowed up the pages like the novel was [...]
The post Sacrifice (Chronicles of Solitude #2) – J.S. Bailey appeared first on Life Is Story.
Servant was my first exposure to J.S. Bailey’s work, and I must say, I am impressed. From the very first page, Bailey drew me in and had me asking questions. Who were Bobby, Phil, Randy, [...]
The post Servant (Chronicles of Servitude #1) – J.S. Bailey appeared first on Life Is Story.
Jane Hardy is back and things are just as convoluted as ever. (WARNING: SPOILERS FROM BOOK 1.) Things seem to have changed a bit from One Little Lie, with Jane not as close to Reid [...]
The post Two Reasons to Run (Pelican Harbor #2) – Colleen Coble appeared first on Life Is Story.
When Jane Hardy was appointed interim sheriff in Pelican Harbor—following the surprise retirement of her father—there are a few unsolved crimes, but nothing out of the ordinary. That soon changes when a shrimp boat reels [...]
The post One Little Lie (Pelican Harbor #1) – Colleen Coble appeared first on Life Is Story.
The fire behind him had finished burning. But in his soaked white suit he looked like a snowman, already starting to melt. I looked up from Alex Pavesi’s The Eighth Detective and toward my wife [...]
The post The Eighth Detective – Alex Pavesi appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Love Note is another amazing story from Joanna Davidson Politano. This is a story of a lost love letter, and its vast impact, bringing much chaos, but ultimately pushing each finder to be their [...]
The post The Love Note – Joanna Davidson Politano appeared first on Life Is Story.
Just the cover of The Key to Love made me want to read it. I found the story to be slightly less appealing than the cover, but still – it’s an overall sweet story. Abrielle, (Bri) is [...]
The post The Key to Love – Betsy St. Amant appeared first on Life Is Story.
I wanted so badly to love this book and for three hundred and fifty-nine pages that is exactly what I did. The Edge of Belonging is a story of discovering identity and finding family. You [...]
The post The Edge of Belonging – Amanda Cox appeared first on Life Is Story.
I have read several novels centered around the story of Rahab, and each one has left me both convicted and filled with an intense warmth that can only come from God. Pearl in the Sand [...]
The post Pearl in the Sand – Tessa Afshar appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Way of the Brave by Susan May Warren was a book I could not put down once I got a few chapters into it. I never thought I would enjoy a novel about climbing [...]
The post The Way of the Brave – Susan May Warren appeared first on Life Is Story.
The first thing I said when I opened The Price of Valor by Susan May Warren was “FINALLY!” I couldn’t start reading it fast enough. The first two books of the “Global Search and Rescue” [...]
The post The Price of Valor – Susan May Warren appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Heart of a Hero is the second novel in Susan May Warren’s “Global Search and Rescue” series, and she did not disappoint! Readers first meet Aria Sinclair and former SEAL Jake Silver in The [...]
The post The Heart of a Hero – Susan May Warren appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is a breathtaking novel that leaves you pondering, in awe and amazement. How does one begin to put words together to adequately describe this glowing story of starry light?! Set the Stars Alight is [...]
The post Set the Stars Alight – Amanda Dykes appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is my first experience with reading anything written by Lori Benton, and I am completely amazed and astounded at the raw talent that is this story. I first picked up the book and began [...]
The post Mountain Laurel – Lori Benton appeared first on Life Is Story.
Could I just…self-proclaim myself as DiAnn Mills’ biggest fan at this point? Long Walk Home is unlike any other novel I have ever read. It reminds me more of a nonfiction book in its topic–missionary work in [...]
The post Long Walk Home – DiAnn Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
Where Tomorrow Leads by DiAnn Mills picks up where its prequel, Long Walk Home, ends. A couple years have passed, and the population of southern Sudan is hesitantly hopeful for peace. Authorities have negotiated a new peace [...]
The post Where Tomorrow Leads – DiAnn Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
Rachelle Dekker’s writing journey has bounced through literary genres. Most authors find a genre and stick to it. Some may play around the edges, but most find that readers want to know what they’re getting [...]
The post Nine – Rachelle Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Becoming Us is a story of friendship, which is good because Emily Winslow needs friends. Moving to California was supposed to be a new start. Instead, all it had done is removed their support structure [...]
The post Becoming Us – Robin Jones Gunn appeared first on Life Is Story.
The year is 1944. Dolly Chandler’s last hope to same the generational family home is to turn it into a boarding house for those coming to Blackberry Springs to work in the munitions plant. They’ve [...]
The post Almost Home – Valerie Fraser Luesse appeared first on Life Is Story.
As a social worker, Wren Crawford knows when to seek help. Still, knowing and doing are different and it takes all that she has to check herself into a psychiatric facility. She’s been overwhelmed with [...]
The post Shades of Light – Sharon Garlough Brown appeared first on Life Is Story.
Meri is on the run from her family. She knows they’ll find her eventually, but that’s a problem for later. Right now, having flunked out of med school, facing her family full of doctors is [...]
The post The Inn at Hidden Run – Olivia Newport appeared first on Life Is Story.
Whitney Garrison saw the murder. Saw the murderer. Saw his face. And yet, she has no idea what he looks like. He could be anyone. Anywhere. The killer has…Everywhere to Hide. The reason Whitney could [...]
The post Everywhere to Hide – Siri Mitchell appeared first on Life Is Story.
Buried treasure. An election in the balance. A family history put into question. A Dazzle of Diamonds by Liz Johnson is a fascinating book from the moment you glance at the back cover. It features [...]
The post A Dazzle of Diamonds (Georgia Coast Romance #3) – Liz Johnson appeared first on Life Is Story.
A Life Once Dreamed by Rachel Fordham is a mildly enjoyable—although somewhat predictable—journey to an 1880s frontier town in the Dakota Territory. Fordham provides a glimpse into a past long gone for her readers, and [...]
The post A Life Once Dreamed – Rachel Fordham appeared first on Life Is Story.
“Sometimes you need someone to step in and save you from yourself.” I pulled the line above from Lynette Eason’s Acceptable Risk because it sums up the entire novel in one simple sentence. This romantic [...]
The post Acceptable Risk – Lynette Eason appeared first on Life Is Story.
Deep Extraction is my favorite of DiAnn Mills’ FBI Task Force series. Hands down. The FBI tasks Special Agent Tori Templeton to investigate a suspicious death. Her friend’s husband, Nathan Moore, had a heart attack, his [...]
The post Deep Extraction – DiAnn Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
One shot–an assassination attempt. One death–a bodyguard’s life lost. A million questions. DiAnn Mills drew me into High Treason from the first page. The third and final book of the FBI Task Force series, I unfortunately [...]
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Deadly Encounter is the third book by DiAnn Mills that I have read, and thus far – unfortunately – my least favorite. The first book of Mills’s “FBI Task Force” series was well written, and [...]
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I came to The Dutch House exactly the way a literary person shouldn’t. I had heard the name off Ann Patchett, but because this review site tends towards coverage of Christian fiction, my free time [...]
The post The Dutch House – Ann Patchett appeared first on Life Is Story.
After Goldstone Wood came to an ignominious end, Anne Elisabeth Stengl tried her best to keep the series going. Book seven, Golden Daughter, was published under Rooglewood Press, her own independent publisher. While a full-length [...]
The post Draven’s Light (A Goldstone Wood Novella) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
I first discovered Goldstone Wood in 2013 with Dragonwitch. I immediately went back to books 1-4 (Heartless, Veiled Rose, Moonblood, and Starflower) and followed the series in lock-step until Anne Elisabeth Stengl put aside that [...]
The post Fallen Star (A Short Story of Goldstone Wood) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
I had not read any of Carrie Stuart Parks’s work prior to Relative Silence. Based off this particular novel, I will be searching for more that she has written. I read Relative Silence in a [...]
The post Relative Silence – Carrie Stuart Parks appeared first on Life Is Story.
A historical fiction novel about a lady doctor. If this isn’t enough of a novelty, add in the fact that she’s part Native American. I really liked the idea behind Tracie Peterson’s The Way of [...]
The post The Way of Love – Tracie Peterson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Elizabeth Camden’s A Gilded Lady is the continuing saga of the Delacroix siblings. This second book in the Hope and Glory series focuses on the beautiful Caroline. In the first book, The Spice King, you [...]
The post A Gilded Lady – Elizabeth Camden appeared first on Life Is Story.
“On remote missions, she controlled her phobia with her mind. In and out, get the job done. She would learn to handle it with this case, too, and no one would learn the truth.” If [...]
The post Fatal Strike – DiAnn Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
A few months ago, I picked up the fifth book in Tales of Goldstone Wood, Dragonwitch, and was immediately drawn into the series. It had been quite some time since I had read a fantasy [...]
The post Heartless (Tales of Goldstone Wood #1) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
Veiled Rose is best described as a companion novel to Stengl’s 2010 debut, Heartless. The novel follows a few of the same characters and expands upon a storyline given a brief reference in Heartless. Near [...]
The post Veiled Rose (Tales of Goldstone Wood #2) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
Veiled Rose ends with Prince Lionheart—or Leo the Jester—returning to his kingdom having bargained with, rather than fought, the dragon. He returns to Southlands as the Crown Prince, but the inhabitants of Southlands distrust the [...]
The post Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood #3) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Dragonwitch seeks the Flowing Gold of Rudiobus, and none save King Iubdan, Queen Bebo, and Lady Gleamdren know of its secret…and Lady Gleamdren would be the most easily captured and most likely to be [...]
The post Starflower (Tales of Goldstone Wood #4) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
I have a confession. I dislike fantasy novels. Especially Christian fantasy novels. Well, let me clarify. Because of the popularity of the Lord of the Rings (and Hobbit) movie franchises as well as the enduring [...]
The post Dragonwitch (Tales of Goldstone Wood #5) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
Up until this point in the Tales of Goldstone Wood, I would perfectly comfortable saying that you could read any novel as a standalone story, then retreat to the previous books. But Shadow Hand is [...]
The post Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood #6) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
Officially, the Golden Daughters are a myth. Unofficially, they are one of the most elite sets of bodyguards ever trained. The best and brightest and most beautiful set aside and trained as the perfect weapons [...]
The post Golden Daughter (Tales of Goldstone Wood #7) – Anne Elisabeth Stengl appeared first on Life Is Story.
Don’t Keep Silent by Elizabeth Goddard is one of those books that would’ve quickly drawn my attention at any bookstore. The title piqued my interest, and when I read the synopsis the first time, there [...]
The post Don’t Keep Silent (Uncommon Justice #3) – Elizabeth Goddard appeared first on Life Is Story.
Dead Silence by Robin Caroll snagged my attention from the moment I saw the abstract. Elise Carmichael, who is an ex-model turned sign language interpreter, read lips automatically. This habit, however, leads to her seeing [...]
The post Dead Silence – Robin Caroll appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is not your typical historical fiction! I have enjoyed other books by Ms. Klassen, and rather expected this one to be similar. But, I had barely began reading when I discovered how different this [...]
The post The Bridge to Belle Island Julie Klassen appeared first on Life Is Story.
These Nameless Things is a Dante’s Inferno-esque tale that deals with one man’s personal hell and his struggle for redemption. Smucker doesn’t hide the connections. The entrance into the mountain cave bears the famous warning [...]
The post These Nameless Things – Shawn Smucker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Airborne by DiAnn Mills caught my attention from the moment I saw the cover—“A killer virus is unleashed, and it’s up to her to stop it.” Part of me cringed. Another segment of me gave [...]
The post Airborne – DiAnn Mills appeared first on Life Is Story.
I know what you’re wondering: “Reviewing a disease-thriller during a global pandemic – isn’t that too on the nose? How morbid can this guy be?” The answers are “maybe,” and “morbid enough I guess.” I’m [...]
The post Outbreak – Davis Bunn appeared first on Life Is Story.
I don’t often give five-star reviews, but A Dream within a Dream by Mike Nappa and Melissa Kosci gets one of my first of the year. And that’s saying a lot, because this particular novel [...]
The post A Dream within a Dream – Mike Nappa and Melissa Kosci appeared first on Life Is Story.
Ronie Kendig continues to prove herself as the queen of military suspense and thriller. Kings Falling, book two of the gripping Book of the Wars series, is a can’t-put-down page-turner filled with action from the [...]
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Storm Rising is the first book in Ronie Kendig’s The Book of the Wars trilogy. For readers of her earlier series, it will be like meeting up with old acquaintances, because there are some familiar characters from [...]
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The Key to Everything by Valerie Fraser Luesse is a book that reminds me of storytelling at its finest. The book isn’t full of suspense or thrills. There are no real plot twists or overly [...]
The post The Key to Everything – Valerie Fraser Luesse appeared first on Life Is Story.
There’s great power in a good story. Stories bring us together, help us find common ground, take us on a common journey. In Stories That Bind Us, Susie Finkbeiner weaves a compelling relational narrative about [...]
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I’m sitting here with tears, trying to process all the layers of this amazing story. So much pain. Hope. Redemption. Forgiveness. Love. This story pretty much had me hooked from the very first page. (You [...]
The post Stay With Me – Becky Wade appeared first on Life Is Story.
Mary Connealy’s Woman of Sunlight is a fun read – humorous, intriguing, lots of unexpected events, some suspense, and even a bit of action and danger. This entire story is quite the adventure. Ilsa joins Mitch [...]
The post Woman of Sunlight – Mary Connealy appeared first on Life Is Story.
Ta-Nehisi Coates has established himself as one of the top essayists of the 21st century. His article in the Atlantic on reparations pretty much single-handedly revitalized national discussion on the topic. Between the World and [...]
The post The Water Dancer – Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared first on Life Is Story.
Where the Crawdads Sing is one of the most beautiful, powerful novels I’ve ever read. It’s an absolute masterpiece that’s every bit as layered and filled with surprises as the marshlands that form its setting. [...]
The post Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens appeared first on Life Is Story.
What an absolutely amazing story! Before I Called You Mine is both inspirational and thought provoking. Nicole Deese inspires me to reach out in ways that might look impossible and just trust. Lauren is such a [...]
The post Before I Called You Mine – Nicole Deese appeared first on Life Is Story.
I don’t typically read women’s fiction. I am, after all, a thirty-year-old man. I’m not the target demographic. And yet, when the publisher contacted me to ask if I’d consider reading this book, I took [...]
The post The Best We’ve Been – Beth Vogt appeared first on Life Is Story.
Aiming for Love by Mary Connealy is the first book in the Brides of Hope Mountain series, and is a fun new historical fiction read. It’s the story of three sisters, the Nordegren girls, who [...]
The post Aiming for Love – Mary Connealy appeared first on Life Is Story.
(ed. note: These reviews are written from the perspective of an adult comparing this series to the Circle. Someone coming at the story with no previous knowledge may have a different perspective.) The Dream Traveler’s [...]
The post The Final Judgment (Dream Traveler’s Quest #4) | Kara & Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Dream Traveler’s Quest is a four-book series written by Kara and Ted Dekker that pairs with Ted Dekker’s Beyond the Circle duology that released around the same time. Written for ages 7-12, The Dream [...]
The post The Garden and the Serpent (Dream Traveler’s Quest #3) | Kara & Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
(ed. note: These reviews are written from the perspective of an adult comparing this series to the Circle. Someone coming at the story with no previous knowledge may have a different perspective.) The Dream Traveler’s [...]
The post The Curse of Shadowman (Dream Traveler’s Quest #2) | Kara & Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Dream Traveler’s Quest is a four-book series written by Kara and Ted Dekker that pairs with Ted Dekker’s Beyond the Circle duology that released around the same time. Written for ages 7-12, The Dream [...]
The post Into the Book of Light (Dream Traveler’s Quest #1) | Kara & Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
If you haven’t heard of this series, you aren’t alone. The Dream Traveler’s Quest was released without much notice or fanfare in late 2018 and…well…that’s kinda been it. The four-book series is aimed at ages [...]
The post The Dream Traveler’s Quest | Kara & Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
This book has a lot going on in it. That’s my one-sentence review. Is that good? Is that bad? Eh. Think of the Fast and Furious movies, or, at least, the later ones. Their pacing [...]
The post Chasing the White Lion – James Hannibal appeared first on Life Is Story.
Joel Rosenberg has reached the point in his career where there has to be a specific disclaimer that his novels are not the result of inside information. They aren’t prophecies. They aren’t predictions. But they [...]
The post The Jerusalem Assassin (Marcus Ryker #3) – Joel Rosenberg appeared first on Life Is Story.
I ended my review of The Tehran Initiative by saying that I hoped Rosenberg redeemed what I felt like was a very weak second installment in the third and final book. And then…I never read [...]
The post The Damascus Countdown – Joel Rosenberg appeared first on Life Is Story.
Ah, wouldn’t it be great to just pick up and leave a drab, disappointing life and drive off to a new beginning complete with loving family and a potentially hot romance? That’s what protagonist Dillon [...]
The post The Happy Camper – Melody Carlson appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Magi have been shrouded in legend since their singular, enigmatic appearance in the Gospels. By AD 500, the early church fathers had reworked them as kings. Later reformers, such as John Calvin, pushed back [...]
The post The End of the Magi – Patrick Carr appeared first on Life Is Story.
Novelizations are never easy. As an author, you’re expected to take a screenplay—and perhaps, but not always, watch the film—and do some imaginary acting and flesh out the characters, their internal monologues, and do the [...]
The post Indivisible – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Not even the writing talents of Travis Thrasher can redeem this fiery dumpster heap of a film/plot. Following the success of God’s Not Dead—a mediocre Christian-feel-good story about a college student whose faith is challenged [...]
The post God’s Not Dead 2 – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Writing Biblical fiction is no easy task, particularly when the chosen protagonist is also the protagonist of an entire book of the Bible. With ten novels of lesser-known biblical women in the rearview mirror, Jill [...]
The post Star of Persia: Esther’s Story | Jill Eileen Smith appeared first on Life Is Story.
This is such a beautiful story. I wanted to cry through parts of it, I was that emotionally caught up in the story, and found so much I could relate to with Emily. I loved [...]
The post If for Any Reason – Courtney Walsh appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Land Beneath Us is the third book in Sarah Sundin’s Sunrise at Normandy series. It is the continuing story of the three Paxton brothers, Wyatt, Adler, and Clayton. This book gives us Clay’s story. [...]
The post The Land Beneath Us – Sarah Sundin appeared first on Life Is Story.
Aquila and Priscilla rank as one of the most famously unknown couples in biblical history. What we know: They were kicked out of Rome—along with all other Christians—by the Emperor Claudius. They were tent-makers who [...]
The post Daughter of Rome – Tessa Afshar appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s been not quite a year since Nathan W. Pyle graced readers with a four-panel comic strip of aliens trying to be human and exposing some of the weirdest quirks of life. The first strip [...]
The post Strange Planet – Nathan W. Pyle appeared first on Life Is Story.
A few years back, a school bus full of children collided with an oncoming train and the resultant explosion meant that there were no survivors. Nobody questioned this narrative. It was heart-wrenching. It was tragic. [...]
The post Collision of Lies – Tom Threadgill appeared first on Life Is Story.
Bestselling author, Lynette Eason is launching another series with the release of her latest book, Collateral Damage. This time Eason takes on the war in Afghanistan, and its after effects, dodgy orphanages, and shadowy assassins. [...]
The post Collateral Damage – Lynette Eason appeared first on Life Is Story.
Susan May Warren’s books are synonymous with action packed suspense. This book, The Way of the Brave, is different from the last series I’d read of hers, a series full of danger, mystery and intrigue. [...]
The post The Way of the Brave – Susan May Warren appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s always difficult to review a novelization. Even the most creative writer is ultimately bound by the confines of the movie’s plot and there are both overt and implicit expectations. Developing a book from a [...]
The post Overcomer – Chris Fabry appeared first on Life Is Story.
Bug Man is back! Forensic entomologist Nick Polchak returnsfor his fifth adventure in Ends of the Earth. Building on the Nick’s history in the four previous books, Tim Downs sets the scene of a drug-related [...]
The post Ends of the Earth (A Bug Man Novel) – Tim Downs appeared first on Life Is Story.
TODAY WE DO SELF PORTRAIT, Kathleen signed as the art teacher spoke. DRAW WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE. Who was I? That was not a question I could answer very easily anymore. I had ambitions [...]
The post The Silence Between Us – Alison Gervais appeared first on Life Is Story.
What does it mean to be human? It’s already a nearly impossible question to answer, one that ranges wildly depending on the social and religious background of the one answering. Is it a matter of [...]
The post Synapse – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
In a world of cutthroats and conniving, Danny Byrd has always stood out as a man of honesty and integrity. But when his partner cleans out their accounts and leaves him high and dry, Byrd [...]
The post Unscripted – Davis Bunn appeared first on Life Is Story.
I tried to like this book for a month. Colleen Coble is a USA Today bestselling author. She came to me recommended by some authors I know and love and respect and whose books I [...]
The post Strands of Truth – Colleen Coble appeared first on Life Is Story.
Twenty-five years ago, Francine Rivers penned a short, little Christmas novella called The Shoe Box. Simple, poignant, and powerful, that story has been a Christmas favorite for a generation. This new edition includes an Advent [...]
The post The Shoe Box (25th Anniversary Edition) | Francine Rivers appeared first on Life Is Story.
Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved. – David Foster Wallace When the non-fiction of her life because too much to cope with, Robin Dickinson—in truth, Robin [...]
The post The Words Between Us – Erin Bartels appeared first on Life Is Story.
Humanity is decaying. Rapid-onset dementia has overtaken the United States. Just before she went into the bunker, Wynter Roth thought she had delivered the cure. She would emerge and the antidote would have been dispersed. [...]
The post A Single Light | Tosca Lee appeared first on Life Is Story.
The outside world swirls with an apocalypse. Thirteen years ago, the angel Sylous visited the community that would become New Haven and warned them. They had seen the Fury in all their blackness and darkness [...]
The post The Girl Behind the Red Rope – Ted Dekker & Rachelle Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Flight of the Raven | Morgan Busse There’s no going back. Selene has not just aligned herself with the man she was ordered to kill, she has married him. It was a marriage of desperation. [...]
The post Flight of the Raven – Morgan Busse appeared first on Life Is Story.
Warning, contains spoilers for The Progeny. The one question that dogged Audra Ellison was why. Why had she chosen to relinquish her memories? What did she need to forget? Who was she protecting? Was she [...]
The post Firstborn | Tosca Lee appeared first on Life Is Story.
Don’t ask about the last two years. If everything went as planned, you’ve forgotten them along with several other details of your life. Don’t try to remember and don’t go digging. Your life depends on [...]
The post The Progeny | Tosca Lee appeared first on Life Is Story.
Allison and Parker have a problem. When their dad died, he left behind the legacy of a secret life of gambling debts. Now, unless they can band together, unscrupulous loan sharks threaten their family’s financial [...]
The post The Pages of Her Life – James Rubart appeared first on Life Is Story.
When Through Deep Waters | Rachelle Dekker In a moment, everything changes. Just a moment away. Just a minute around the corner. Just like a thousand times before. But this time, her child drowned. Four [...]
The post When Through Deep Waters | Rachelle Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Before Jesus left this earth, he promised that his followers would do miracles greater than the ones he performed. And for the first few centuries of the church, this was true. Faith that can move [...]
The post Soul’s Gate – James Rubart appeared first on Life Is Story.
Warning: Contains spoilers for The Choosing and The Calling. For twenty years, Elise Brant has been a captive in Authority City, abandoned by her parents, subject to experimentation, unusual because the Genesis Serum doesn’t affect [...]
The post The Returning – Rachelle Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Warning: Contains spoilers for The Choosing. It has been almost two years since Carrington and Remko submitted to the teaching of Aaron and their Heavenly Father. Two years on the run from the Authority. Two [...]
The post The Calling – Rachelle Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
In the not-too-distant future of a not-that-implausible world, Carrington Hale prepares for The Choosing. It’s what all girls her age have done since society picked itself up after the Ruining. They have stood before the [...]
The post The Choosing – Rachelle Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
All of the Seven Houses have a special gift. Ravenwood, it is commonly thought, has none. That special ability died out in the fall of House of Ravenwood to the Dominia Empire all those years [...]
The post Mark of the Raven – Morgan Busse appeared first on Life Is Story.
Patrick Bowers has seen a lot in his time as an FBI environmental criminologist. His specialty, by its nature, pits him against the most evil serial killers in history. Rather than look at one specific [...]
The post The King – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
Achan Cham, the stray recently discovered to be Gidon Hadar, heir to the throne of Er’Rets, has finally accepted his destiny. By Darkness Hid told us the story of Achan’s discovery of his heritage while [...]
The post From Darkness Won – Jill Williamson appeared first on Life Is Story.
With seamlessness and suddenness, Jill Williamson throws the reader back into the fury of the Blood of Kings chronicles. The cliffhanger to end By Darkness Hid becomes the immediate conflict of To Darkness Fled. Much [...]
The post To Darkness Fled – Jill Williamson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Her fingers dance the dance of Story, weaving wispy ethereal, ephemeral tendrils of light into crystallized form. As she weaves, she speaks, recounting any one of the famous tales—the ones that are allowed, anyway. And [...]
The post The Story Peddler – Lindsay Franklin (Weaver Trilogy #1) appeared first on Life Is Story.
Ever since The Circle Trilogy hit the shelves in 2004, readers have not been able to get enough of Ted Dekker’s fantasy world of Other Earth—a world akin to Lewis’s Narnia or Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. But [...]
The post The Blood Book – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Since 2007, Steven James has been telling Patrick Bowers’ story. As an environmental criminologist, Bowers combines the latest techniques in environmental psychology with geospatial investigation to identify, track, and catch serial offenders. All of that [...]
The post Opening Moves – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
Human. That’s all Achan Cham really wants in life—to feel like a human. But Strays are afforded such dignities and he’s lucky to have the place to sleep and the little food he gets to [...]
The post By Darkness Hid – Jill Williamson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Joel Rosenberg first caught my attention some years ago when I read his debut novel The Last Jihad, which begins by putting readers in the cockpit of a hijacked airplane hurtling ever closer to an [...]
The post The Twelfth Imam – Joel Rosenberg appeared first on Life Is Story.
With The Keeper, Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee have gives readers a short story prequel to Forbidden, enough to whet your appetite, though I daresay Forbidden is tasty enough by itself. I’m not one to tell [...]
The post The Keeper – Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee appeared first on Life Is Story.
It all began when Rom Sebastian was entrusted with a vial of blood and a cryptic message. Actually, it all began before that, when the world was nearly destroyed and do save it, an airborne [...]
The post Sovereign (Books of Mortals #3) – Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee appeared first on Life Is Story.
This story is for everyone – but not everyone is for this story. In a tale of love and betrayal, Ted Dekker sets before us a story we have all heard before, a story we [...]
The post Immanuel’s Veins – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
He kills them because he loves them. He loves them because God loves them and he has been chosen by God. And they have been chosen by God. And God is the groom; they are [...]
The post The Bride Collector – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Nine years have passed since Life first came unto Death and Death did not understand it. Nine years Rom Sebastian has been Mortal, able to feel the emotions deemed too dangerous to exist: Love, Joy, [...]
The post Mortal – Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Circle. Diligent followers of this review site (and I thank you for being diligent followers; go ye and make disciples) will have noticed that over the past few days, TCC has dived deep into [...]
The post The Circle – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
The world is dead and yet they walk about ignorant of their death, unaware that what makes them human has been stripped from them, that real life has been Forbidden and emotion deemed too powerful [...]
The post Forbidden – Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee appeared first on Life Is Story.
A double homicide with alleged killer missing and presumed dead: it’s not exactly the complex case that Patrick Bowers is used to, and he’s less than happy that he’s been pulled from searching for the [...]
The post The Queen – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
Step aside Jack Bauer, move away Mr. Bond, to the back Jason Bourne, even you Alex Cross – Patrick Bowers has taken your spotlight, and he’s not giving it up easily. In a culture infatuated [...]
The post The Bishop – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
“…these tales, like all other things, may be harmful or useful, according to whoever listens to them.” – Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron Patrick Bowers is used to tracking killers, but this time a killer appears [...]
The post The Knight – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
Sixteen year old Daniel Byers didn’t really know freshman Emily Jackson, hadn’t even known her name until news of her drowning appeared in the newspapers. Yet here he was at her funeral, mostly because his [...]
The post Blur – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
It’s the book that Dekker vowed to never let his fans see, but to a core group of the inner Circle that vow was broken. Rough and messy, the product of an amateur storyteller, Genesis [...]
The post Genesis – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
As soon as I closed the last pages of The Pawn, I turned to pick up The Rook. James’ writing leaves you wanting more, and having been late to discover The Bowers Files, I found [...]
The post The Rook – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
Killing is like chess. It’s a game of strategy, wit, and planning ahead. The Illusionist knows this. The Illusionist also knows about distraction. Look over here as I kill over there. Yes. He knows it [...]
The post The Pawn – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
There has never been a more hyped Dekker novel. After the release of Black, Red, and White in 2004, Ted Dekker expanded the world of the Circle into what became known as the Books of [...]
The post Green – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Billy Rediger has spent the last dozen years running from his past. It was he who wrote Marsuvees Black into existence and nearly destroyed himself and Paradise in the process. His attempt to soothe his [...]
The post Sinner – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Iran has just successfully tested a nuclear weapon. The Madhi has begun consolidating the predominantly Muslim Middle East, with former dictators and kings laying their kingdoms at the feet of this mysterious leader and alleged [...]
The post The Tehran Initiative – Joel Rosenberg appeared first on Life Is Story.
Note: In 2010, Ted Dekker gave away PDF copies of his first-ever unpublished novel, To Kill With Reason. The book was mentioned as being the work of Thomas Hunter in the Circle series, so it [...]
The post To Kill With Reason – Thomas Hunter appeared first on Life Is Story.
Shauna McAllister just wants to forget. Her life to this point has been filled with pain. The death of her mother. The subsequent rejection of her by her father. Her physical and psychological abuse at [...]
The post Kiss – Ted Dekker and Erin Healy appeared first on Life Is Story.
One by one the bones break beneath his expert hands. He’s done this many times before. They don’t call him the BoneMan for nothing. It’s not that he wants to kill them necessarily, they just [...]
The post BoneMan’s Daughters – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
This isn’t your typical serial killer novel. That’s because Eve isn’t your typical serial killer. He kills his victims on the new moon. Leaves their body ravaged by some undetermined form of meningitis. Toys with [...]
The post Adam – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
In early 2011, I picked up the first two volumes of the DarkTrench Saga at the suggestion of few other reviewers whose reviews I trust. I was not disappointed. Unfortunately, I never came back in [...]
The post Freeheads – Kerry Nietz appeared first on Life Is Story.
A dream. That’s what sent Julie Carter to Indonesia. She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d find or where exactly she’d go, but on the basis of that dream she packed only the essentials for her [...]
The post Outlaw – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Kadin’s life used to be normal. After all, that’s what life was like in the city of Abaddon. But after a strange encounter with a wizard, Kadin’s life will never be the same. First thing, [...]
The post Quest for Celestia – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
Marina and Dylan have lived through loss. Twice. Once, when their mother killed herself when they were children. Second, when their father inexplicably wrecked his suburban in a construction zone. Both parents, gone under weird [...]
The post Motherless – Erin Healy appeared first on Life Is Story.
Serena Diaz used to be a schoolteacher. That’s used to be, because she’s just been accused of sexual misconduct with a student. It doesn’t matter that she’s innocent, doesn’t matter that there’s little proof. The [...]
The post Stranger Things – Erin Healy appeared first on Life Is Story.
Vance Nolan has designed and created something no one else had ever done. Eagle’s Talon is a floating community of apartments nestled in a cove on the Rondeau River. Still unfinished, some of the dwellings [...]
The post Afloat – Erin Healy appeared first on Life Is Story.
Beth Borzoi stole a saddle, but it was for a good cause. Absurd as that may sound, all of us have made absurd justifications in our own mind to cover for our own sins. That’s [...]
The post House of Mercy – Erin Healy appeared first on Life Is Story.
When everything falls apart, when the perfect picture is shattered, when your pain seems unbearable…then what? The Baker’s Wife is a story of brokenness and the paths different characters take to restoration, but it all [...]
The post The Baker’s Wife – Erin Healy appeared first on Life Is Story.
(Warning: Contains spoilers for The 13th Tribe: Book 1 in The Immortal Files) It all began 3,500 years ago when a group of Israelites were cursed with immortality due to their idolatry. Death would only [...]
The post The Judgment Stone – Robert Liparulo appeared first on Life Is Story.
Chase Ellis is an artist, and like most artists he is quite unique. His drawings—only in white, always white against a black background—are magnificent as they are mysterious. And they are always of trees. I [...]
The post The Promises She Keeps – Erin Healy appeared first on Life Is Story.
I have a distaste for Christian historical fiction, or at least the stereotypical kind. You know, the idealistic setting, the Christian romance, the often hackneyed and trite paint-by-numbers plot. And yet, a few years ago, [...]
The post The Seamstress – Allison Pittman appeared first on Life Is Story.
The world—or at least the PacNorth part of it—has settled into utopia. Technology has automated many of life’s daily functions, such as driving, and there exists a perfectly democratic society. For a while now, the [...]
The post Mask – Kerry Nietz appeared first on Life Is Story.
Broken – That is probably an accurate one-word synopsis of the state of Lexi’s life. Seven years ago her sister was murdered. Then her drug-dealing husband walked out on her, leaving her to scrape out [...]
The post Never Let You Go – Erin Healy appeared first on Life Is Story.
“Blindly we dream of overcoming death through immortality, when all the time immortality is the most horrific of possible fates.” -Jean Baudrillard Every death is penance, every mission an attempt at absolution, a plea for [...]
The post The 13th Tribe – Robert Liparulo appeared first on Life Is Story.
Jevin Banks is a master illusionist, but after his wife drives into a lake, appearing to purposely kill herself and their twin sons, Jevin has found an illusion too big for him to pull off. [...]
The post Placebo – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
Let me say this from the outset: Steven James is one of the best authors I know. The way he handles story is simply incredible. His ability to develop overarching storylines and compelling themes is [...]
The post Singularity – Steven James appeared first on Life Is Story.
They call him Nebuchadnezzar. He makes the fires seven times hotter. But he can’t escape the burning of his conscience. Deep in the heart of a Romanian forest, Nazi forces have established a concentration camp [...]
The post Konig’s Fire – Marc Schooley appeared first on Life Is Story.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of Duck Dynasty. Over the past couple of years, the Robertson family has turned their incredibly successful business of making duck calls into a even more successful reality show about [...]
The post A Robertson Family Christmas – Travis Thrasher & Kay Robertson appeared first on Life Is Story.
If you own a television and likely even if you don’t, you are aware of Duck Dynasty. God, family, ducks, beards, and Bibles—not necessarily in that order. In the past couple of years, they have [...]
The post Phil and the Ghost of Camp Ch-Yo-Ca – John Luke Robertson and Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Out of the four Be Your Own Duck Commander books, I expected to like this one the most…and it did not disappoint. I mean, consider the premise. Si. In. Space. That’s a premise for ya, [...]
The post Si in Space – John Luke Robertson and Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
“I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious, relentless and cruel.” – Adolph Hitler What would happen if men without conscience, devoid of sympathy, desensitized to violence, and filled [...]
The post Deadfall – Robert Liparulo appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Duck Commander people have done a lot of weird things in the years they’ve been on television, whether it’s the goofy kind of weird (like the show in general) or the serious kind of [...]
The post Willie’s Redneck Time Machine (Be Your Own Duck Commander #1) – Travis Thrasher and John Luke Robertson appeared first on Life Is Story.
Crusader was built as an assassin, trained as a mercenary, stripped of emotion and feeling, a human machine, completely Numb. As a soldier of the Ministrix, it is his job to do whatever the Ministrix [...]
The post Numb – John Otte appeared first on Life Is Story.
John Otte’s debut novel Failstate impressed me with its unique premise, great comic-book style action, relevant themes, and likable characters. A story set in a world where superheroes are real and they’re doing battle on [...]
The post Failstate Legends – John Otte appeared first on Life Is Story.
The guy who does collaborations. That’s become Travis Thrasher’s subtitle over the past few years, whether it’s working with other individuals to tell their story or taking a story from screen to page. Thrasher has [...]
The post Do You Believe? – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Two broken souls. Two very different, very twisted paths. Two ways of looking at life. But when their paths converge, both of their lives will be shaken. Danny Hansen is a Bosnian immigrant to America [...]
The post The Priest’s Graveyard – Ted Dekker appeared first on Life Is Story.
Robert Laughlin is just your average, ordinary, everyday high-school guy. He gets nervous around girls, isn’t terribly popular, and gets picked on by his alpha-male older brother who happens to be mom’s favorite. But he’s [...]
The post Failstate – John Otte appeared first on Life Is Story.
Quick. Name an upcoming movie based on one interpretation of the biblical End Times. If you said Left Behind, well…you’d be right. But it’s not the only one. In September, Sony Affirm will be releasing [...]
The post The Remaining – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Joel Rosenberg is best known for his seemingly prophetic political thrillers. In the 2000s, it seemed as if the man couldn’t write something in his books without a version of it coming true in reality. [...]
The post The Auschwitz Escape – Joel Rosenberg appeared first on Life Is Story.
Last year, Marcher Lord Press added a new author to their ever-expanding list of speculative fiction writers. John Otte entertained me immensely with his fun and unique take on the world of superheroes as seen [...]
The post Gauntlet Goes to Prom – John Otte appeared first on Life Is Story.
You’ve seen them in the stores around Christmastime, an artificial Christmas tree set by the door adorned with a number of ornaments. But they’re more than just decoration. They’re hopes and dreams and faces and [...]
The post Paper Angels – Travis Thrasher & Jimmy Wayne appeared first on Life Is Story.
After years of work, Heath Sawyer has finally made it big in the country music world. The year has been one long train of successes, culminating in playing a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden [...]
The post Time for Me to Come Home – Travis Thrasher and Dorothy Shackleford appeared first on Life Is Story.
Nobody ever thought Daniel Winter and Casey Sparkland would be a couple. For starters, they hated one another. Or, rather, Casey thought Daniel was a jerk, and her attitude often caused Daniel to confirm her [...]
The post Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not – Travis Thrasher and Thompson Square appeared first on Life Is Story.
Cory Brand thinks he has it all going on. He’s a millionaire, playboy, major league baseball player who is hitting his way to the Hall of Fame. Abusive past behind him, glory set in front [...]
The post Home Run – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Thomas Constant, Time personified, has made a deal with Death. Seven people get a chance to relive the last seven hours of life, live for seven more hours in the future, or simply refuse and [...]
The post Seven Hours: Teardrop – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Travis Thrashers’ Solitary Tales is the story of Chris Buckley and the outright horrors he encounters when he moves with his mother to her hometown of Solitary, North Carolina. Those of you who had followed [...]
The post Hurt (Solitary Tales #4) – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Chris Buckley needs answers but he also needs his sanity. Given the events of Solitary and Gravestone, those two things just might be mutually exclusive. Ever since Chris and his mom moved to the supposedly [...]
The post Temptation (Solitary Tales #3) – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Back in the day (or so Travis tell me) there used to be things called B-sides to albums, a song or two that didn’t quite fit in with the theme or story of the rest [...]
The post Something I Can Never Have – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
Missing In Action – It has got to be one of the most dreaded acronyms any military family can hear. KIA—killed in action—hits swift and hard. Certainly difficult, incredibly difficult, but also certain. MIA shreds [...]
The post Letters from War – Travis Thrasher & Mark Schultz appeared first on Life Is Story.
The Persian Gamble by Joel Rosenberg The Persian Gamble begins like The Kremlin Conspiracy began: With Marcus Ryker and Oleg Kraskin a few thousand feet in the air, an exploding plane above them and a [...]
The post The Persian Gamble (Marcus Ryker #2) – Joel Rosenberg appeared first on Life Is Story.
Shattered. There’s no other way to describe Chris Buckley’s life. Absolutely shattered by the events that ended Solitary, Chris now has to return to school like everything is a-ok when in reality nothing has ever [...]
The post Gravestone – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
What if you knew the day you were going to die? What if you knew that Heaven and Hell existed but weren’t sure where you would end up? What God was trying desperately to make [...]
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Travis, Travis, Travis…will you ever write a story that won’t keep me up all night? I suppose it means you’re doing your job though. Make no mistake about it, Solitary is a page-turning, sleep-stealing, heart-throbbing journey that [...]
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In 2004, Ted Dekker burst onto the CBA scene with the Circle Trilogy. Black, Red, and White retold redemptive history in a fresh way and gave Dekker the audience he needed in order to write [...]
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You’ll recall the Biblical story of Hosea: called by God to marry a prostitute in order to demonstrate the love God has for His people and to portray in vivid detail how His people are [...]
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The father holds his daughter daintily in his strong arms. Love swells in his heart and he thinks he is going to cry just by looking at her adorable face. He sings to her softly, [...]
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It’s 2am. The blinking cursor contrasts sharply with the blank white screen, mocking the fact that I haven’t written anything. Time for a break, I thought. Maybe if I read for a bit, I can [...]
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Life was supposed to be normal when James Miller got back from his missionary stint in Papua New Guinea. Spiritual oppression over there was heavy and he had been worn thin fighting it. Here they [...]
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The Amazon. Even today the term brings to us an aura of mystery, adventure, and danger. Back in 1928 – the year Henry Wolfe would pack his bags and lead a team in search of [...]
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Rob Laughlin is living the dream. If your dream is to be a licensed superhero, that is. High school student by day, criminal stopper by night. Back in the days of Failstate, that was a [...]
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Writing is an art; it’s intensely personal and soul-baring. Publishing is business; it’s intensely public and sells its soul to the highest bidder. Colin Scott, a top literary agent, deals in the latter but at [...]
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A few years ago, Marcher Lord Press (now Enclave Publishing) signed on this Lutheran pastor named John Otte with a story about a teenage superhero wannabe who gets his chance on a reality show. In [...]
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Picture it. You’re a businessman out in New York City. The business deal went bust and you’re just hanging out in a place downtown until the plane ride back to your lovely wife. Then this [...]
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Rock on. Most folks remember their college years with some amount of fondness – some for the relationships they made, others for the fun times they had. Jake Rivers had both but he’s put his [...]
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They’re bustin’ out and they ain’t going back – the Stagworth Five have left the building, and led by Sean they’re headed toward Gun Lake. But more excitement is coming to the lake than just the [...]
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Three Roads Home is a collection of three separate love stories of three couples who are able to grow in their love even while going through the storms of life. Relationships must be restored, hearts [...]
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A year after the events of Deadfall, life is never going to be normal for Hutch. It was kill or be killed out there in Fiddler Falls and now that he’s back to civilization, he’s [...]
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Tom Ledger has a nice job at a tech company – if you consider a dead-end job that would make Dilbert envious “nice.” And that’s why he’s downloading a few important files onto his little [...]
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Watermark – A mark impressed on paper that is visible only when the paper is held up to the light. Sheridan Blake is finally getting back to life. After…an incident…that caused him to not finish [...]
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Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. As a young single man, I’ve often been told by those older and wiser than I that, next to my [...]
The post The Promise Remains – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
CDC: ..The exact origin, locations, and natural habitat (known as the “natural reservoir”) of Ebola virus remain unknown. Bio-terrorism. The very word should make your skin crawl. Right now you could be breathing in odorless, [...]
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The Kendrick Brothers have become the kings of Christian filmmaking in recent years. While Fireproof probably will stand as their standout hit, their other movies and the subsequent novelizations have been strong and enjoyable movies [...]
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Things aren’t looking so great for Brandon. Life’s not been normal for a long time—unless you consider having an abusive alcoholic for a father to be a normal thing, unless you consider having an enigmatic [...]
The post Wonder (Books of Marvella #2) – Travis Thrasher appeared first on Life Is Story.
AD 33 | Ted Dekker Three years have passed since Maviah the slave became Maviah the Bedu Queen—Queen of the Outcasts, Daughter of Yeshua. Those three years have not been easy. Her lover lies in [...]
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Hacker | Ted Dekker Nyah Parks is a hacker extraordinaire with an interesting way of building her client base. Obviously, corporations don’t like it when you can hack into their systems. They pay hackers lots [...]
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Water Walker | Ted Dekker Life was just settling into normal. Alice was just beginning to understand what normal actually was. She had no memory of the beyond six months ago and had spent those [...]
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Seer | Ted Dekker WARNING: SPOILERS FOR IDENTITY, MIRRORS, AND UNSEEN BY TED DEKKER Grace is a wonderful, beautiful thing. It frees us from bondage, provides us direction…and perhaps even gives us identity and clear [...]
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Mirrors | Ted Dekker WARNING! SPOILERS FOR IDENTITY BY TED DEKKER When last we left our intrepid adventurers, they were trapped in the psych ward of a local hospital—one dedicated to fixing the most extreme [...]
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AD 30 | Ted Dekker It is very difficult to get a publisher to let you write outside of your genre, your brand. Readers like to know what they’re getting and publishers like to know [...]
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Unseen | Ted Dekker WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR IDENTITY AND MIRRORS BY TED DEKKER. Dead. Fisher is dead. And Austin killed him. It wasn’t as if it was intentional, but it was necessary. Austin had [...]
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Eyes Wide Open | Ted Dekker Christy Snow has lost her identity. She has no recollection of life before age thirteen and is orphaned. She wears a locket around her neck with a stock photograph [...]
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Identity | Ted Dekker Christy Snow has lost her identity. She has no recollection of life before age thirteen and is orphaned. She wears a locket around her neck with a stock photograph of strangers [...]
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It’s only been a little more than a week since the Kings moved to the Victorian mansion known as the old Koenig place, but in that week they’ve lived several lifetimes – nearly literally. The [...]
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You can’t simply do nothing. You must fix things. The Kings’ haven’t been able to relax since they moved into the giant Victorian mansion just a week or so ago. House of Dark Shadows, the [...]
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What would you do if you knew the fate of the world depended on your action or inaction? The Kings’ battle with Taksidian is raised to new heights when the Kings step into a portal [...]
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“He will be the preacher.” Whether this was just an offhand remark or the woman leaning over his crib was speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, either way, her prediction cam e to [...]
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The only thing separating the end of Watcher in the Woods and the beginning of Gatekeepers are the book’s covers. Liparulo wastes no time launching the Dream House Kings right back into the middle of [...]
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Kate is eleven and she lives in a hotel her family owns. It’s weird living in a hotel. She’s always been told that children should be seen and not heard. Because of that, she’s gotten [...]
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Well, I wouldn’t stay in the house. But then again a strange hulking figure from one of the mysterious portals hasn’t kidnapped my mother either. Robert Liparulo wastes no time throwing the Kings back into [...]
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It sits in the middle of the woods, shrouded in the shadows made by the canopy of trees. It creaks, it groans, it breathes. It sits abandoned, waiting for a family to brighten its halls, [...]
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Demon: A Memoir | Tosca Lee He walked right beside you today; you wouldn’t have noticed. He stared at you from across the street; you paid him no attention. The New Testament writings tell us [...]
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Havah | Tosca Lee Today I took a journey deep into the imagination of Tosca Lee. With Eve – Havah – the mother of all living as her subject, and the Biblical account of Genesis [...]
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Iscariot | Tosca Lee He has been despised and rejected by men. He met his end when he was hung upon a tree. Very likely he was a well-known religious leader of his time. No, [...]
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A mysterious beauty, a destiny set in the stars. Born under an inauspicious sign, young Ismeni is feared by her own people. The single thing she prays for: to live an invisible life. But that [...]
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The Legend of Sheba | Tosca Lee She is an enigma, a mystery, an unknown even to those close to her. A queen in a patriarchal world. Ruler of a wealthy kingdom in the middle [...]
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The Line Between | Tosca Lee Like Lucifer before her, Wynter Roth is about to be kicked out of Paradise. Unlike the devil, her sentence is not one handed down by God, but by his [...]
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J.B. Collins is in greater danger than ever before…and that’s saying something. ISIS has attacked the Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in Jordan and thousands are dead or injured, including many important political leaders. And worst of [...]
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Marvelous | Travis Thrasher Things are about to change in Brandon’s life. If not for the better, than for the weirder. He has two younger brothers; a mom who works all the time to support [...]
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More than any other author I’ve read, Ted Dekker has the ability to immerse the reader into the story, and then at the end pull them out of it, leaving them entertained, enlightened, and wanting [...]
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Confession. Every Crooked Path is the first Bowers book that I’ve not read in one sitting. With his other books, lengthy though they may be, I knew enough to carve out an entire day to [...]
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It’s been a few years since Mike Dellosso gave readers a new novel. Sure, we had his ebook novella a while back, but Centralia marks a new publisher and maybe a new life in publishing. [...]
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Joel Rosenberg needs to stop writing. I mean it. Seriously. I don’t mean his novels are bad. I mean that everything he writes has a tendency to work its way into reality. Like writing about [...]
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Chelsea Chambers is rebuilding her life. After a very public split from her NFL superstar husband, all she wants to do is fade into the distance, raise her children, and run her mom’s old coffee [...]
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Every author has that book, whether it’s their first or their tenth or their fifth. There will be a book that just doesn’t live up to the standard to which they’ve been hyped. For John [...]
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Waking Beauty opens with a sardonic Sleeping Beauty parody, as Arpien finds his spindle-pricked princess more than a bit dusty. Love’s first kiss is a musty mess and Princess Brierly is certain she’s still sleeping [...]
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